the vanishing everything of everywhere – elegies and illusions

Time, time, time, see what’s become of me…” When The Bangles covered Simon & Garfunkel’s A Hazy Shade of Winter in 1987, the song was 21 years and one month old, and now (January 2018) The Bangles’ version (from the underrated – according to me – movie of Bret Easton Ellis’ Less Than Zero)  is 30 years and one month old; time flies, another year draws to an end etc etc etc. It took until the early 1990s for 60s nostalgia to really take hold and, true to form 30 years on from the 1980s, 80s nostalgia is everywhere; in music, in fashion and (especially) in film and television. Even the tired, terrifying old tropes of the cold war are back; excellent stuff.

It’s approximately 90 years since HP Lovecraft wrote, “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is the fear of the unknown.” (in the essay Supernatural Horror in Literature (1926-7)), and it’s got to be something like 25 years or so since I first read those words (in the HP Lovecraft Omnibus Vol 2, Dagon and other Macabre Tales, Grafton Books, 1985, p.423 ). So what about it?

Lovecraft might well be right about fear; but more pertinent to my intro is that possibly the oldest emotion preserved in literature – at least (major, major caveat, based on my ignorance) in the literature of Europe – is nostalgia, and the feeling that things were better in the past. (see also here for an excellent & thoughtful look at nostalgia) The literature of the ancient Greeks makes clear that the age of heroes already lay in the distant past. The pride and arrogance of Imperial Rome was tempered – formally, at least – by the belief that it was a pale imitation of the Republic which the Empire supplanted. The earliest literature in (old) English makes it clear that the inhabitants of what was one day to become England were a) not entirely sure of what had come before, but b) knew that it was in many ways ‘better’ and certainly more impressive than the present day of the 8th century:

“The work of the Giants, the stonesmiths,/ mouldereth…
And the wielders and wrights?/Earthgrip holds them – gone, long gone”

The Ruin, (Translated by Michael Alexander, The Earliest English Poems, Penguin Classics (3rd edition, 1991, p. 2)

Even closer to home (for me), the earliest literature of Scotland, the Goddodin of the poet Aneirin, does something similar. The poem dates from somewhere from the 7th to 10th century and is written in the ancient British language now called Old Welsh (which it is of course, but it is also, geographically, old English and old Scots, since it seems to have been spoken in a far wider area than modern Wales). The Goddodin is a series of elegies mourning the loss of the warriors of the eponymous ancient kingdom (which spread roughly over what are now the modern Scottish regions of Lothian and Borders) in battle, and with them the heroic culture of their era.*

*a perennial theme that crops up in a very similar form in the Fortinbras subplot of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, preserved at one remove from the earliest known version of the story, Saxo Grammaticus’ elemental/mythological 13th century version from his Gesta Danorum. But even this is assumed to be derived from an earlier, lost source, probably Icelandic.

To say that nostalgia as opposed to fear may be mankind’s oldest emotion is problematic. Logically it’s difficult (chicken/egg innit), but also, for all of its obvious dominant ingredients – sadness/regret and happiness – a large component of nostalgia can be fear, and, specifically, Lovecraft’s ‘fear of the unknown’ (in this case the always unknowable future). That’s problematic for many reasons. In the examples of nostalgia noted above, the glamour (not intended to have its old, magical meaning, but actually that’s probably even more appropriate) attached to the past is partly because it can’t come again. If the people of “now” were as noble, heroic etc as the people of “then”, then somehow the past and the ancestors – a vital component of the values of most non-Christian and pre-Christian cultures – are devalued and not receiving their due reverence.

Although it seems almost incomprehensible to someone of my generation, there seems to be a similar, ‘don’t disrespect the ancestors’  unease nowadays in some circles that’s manifested in an unwillingness to condemn wholesale the expansion/existence of the British Empire. And really, it’s not very complicated  – it is entirely possible to be impressed by and/or grateful for the innovations of the Victorian era – flushing toilets, railways and whatnot – while also seeing the culture and times for what they were; repressive, oppressive, misogynistic, racist, ignorant. It shouldn’t be difficult, because it’s happened before. Christianity made it easy for previous ages to condemn the pagan empires of Rome, Greece, Egypt and co (and indeed the ancient Arabic civilisations) without abandoning the inventions and innovations of those same ‘decadent’ civilisations. Indeed, even at the height of Christian belief in Europe, interest in the cultures of the pagan empires remained high, even if Christian scholars felt the need to inflict a version of their own value system onto their researches. There’s no reason that people now shouldn’t be able to do the same with the ages we have left behind, or are hopefully in the process of leaving behind. Yes, good things come from bad cultures or societies, but not because of the bad, but just because (most) human beings are extraordinary.

In 2017 there seemed to be – as I suppose there always must be – an ever-increasing number of warring nostalgias and counter-nostalgias, the latest being for the Russian Revolution in 1917 – a violent event, with vast and oppressive consequences and therefore definitely negative, but like most revolutions, born of aspirations and ideals which are hard to dismiss. In fact, Dickens’ famous opening to A Tale Of Two Cities seems uncannily prophetic, because Dickens – as he explicitly realised – could see that human nature and human actions remain fairly constant:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only”

I think it’s probably true that it’s always the best of times, for somebody, in some respect. It’s certainly always the worst of times for other people; which sounds complacent or at least fatalistic, but only if one doesn’t try in some way to improve things. This kind of impersonal nostalgia – for ‘better’ times – is, necessarily selective. (in fact, all nostalgia is, because perception is selective – hmm, it seems like this just started copying the thing about realism I wrote recently, but bear with me) and relies to a large degree on ignorance and/or self-deception in order to be nostalgia at all.

History isn’t really a subject, history is everything; people, peoples, cultures, societies, but, necessarily “history” as it’s taught, or absorbed through popular culture, filters and simplifies. That’s important, because when people in Britain talk nostalgically about ‘Victorian values’ you can (usually) assume that they don’t intend any reference to the exploitation and subjugation of untold millions of people, child prostitution and child labour, the life expectancy of the average Victorian person etc. And, as always, history is more complex than its popular image. The Victorian era may be symbolised for British people by the building of railways or the expansion of the Empire, or by Jack the Ripper, or Queen Victoria being unamused, or by the establishment’s treatment of Oscar Wilde; but it was also the era that produced and shaped Jack the Ripper, Queen Victoria and of course, Wilde himself, as well as the whole decadent movement. Interestingly, Sigmund Freud was only two years younger than Wilde; an apparently value-free but perhaps significant observation.

This kind of complexity is what makes history more interesting than it’s sometimes given credit for. The Scottish Enlightenment was a wonderful, positive, outward-looking movement, but it coexisted in Scotland with a joyless, moralising and oppressive Calvinist culture. Time and nostalgia have a way of homogenising peoples and cultures. The popular idea of ancient Rome is probably one of conquest, grandeur and decadence, but what is the popular idea, if there is one, of ‘an ancient Roman’? Someone, probably a man, probably from Italy, in a toga or armour; quite likely an emperor, a soldier or a gladiator, rather than say, a merchant, clerk or farmer. But even within this fairly narrow image, a complex figure like the emperor Elagabalus (who was Syrian, teenage, possibly transgender) defeats the obvious school textbook perceptions of ‘Roman-ness’ (as, perhaps, it did for the Romans themselves). Even in our own time, the fact that older generations from the 60s/70s to the present could lament the passing of times when ‘men were men & women were women’ etc is – to say the least – extremely disingenuous. Presumably what they mean is a time when non-‘manly’ men could be openly discriminated against and/or abused and women could be expected to be quiet and submissive.

Similarly, throughout my life I have heard people – and not only right-wing people – talk about the economic success that Hitler brought to Germany. But you don’t have to be the chairperson of a financial think-tank to see that a programme of accelerated militarism that requires war in order to function isn’t really a viable economic model for anyone who doesn’t espouse the ideology of Nazism or at least some kind of Imperial expansionism. But people seemingly want to believe that if it wasn’t for all those pesky Nazi faults Hitler could have been a great leader. He couldn’t, though, because he was a real person, his beliefs were inseparable from everything he did and he really did exist and do the things he did and therefore wasn’t a great leader.

As I’ve said too many times already, history is complex, but nostalgia is too. It’s impossible to express in a single word other than itself, though interestingly, its original Greek meaning (‘homecoming pain’) is actually more specific than the word itself has come to be in English. Possibly because of this hard-to-express quality, most European languages tend to use variations of the word ‘nostalgia’ rather than having a word of their own with the same meaning. But despite that complexity, it tends to have a simplifying quality.

The reason for that simplifying is because, for many people, nostalgia equals safety. Political reactionaries always look to the past for examples of stability and they’ll always find them – but that stability is an illusion, caused by the fact that the past itself is stable, but only in the one sense of being unchangeable. And until the invention of the time machine it will remain unchangeable – but even so, through endless re-interpretations, re-evaluations and new points of view, the picture we have of it fluctuates almost daily. I think it’s fair to assume that (as Dickens implied) every ‘golden age’ masks a dark age but the temptation to look at the past fondly is hard to resist. It often seems otherwise, but people are, by and large fairly positive and want to look back with fondness, even if it’s a melancholy fondness. And the result of that is a softening and distancing of the darker aspects of history. A quote from the great Scottish singer/songwriter Alex Harvey strips away the soft-focus effect that the distorting lens of nostalgia puts on the past:

“Nobody ever won a war. A hundred thousand dead at Waterloo. No glory in that. Nobody needs that.” (quoted in Charles Shaar Murray’s Shots From The Hip, Penguin Books, 1991, p.71)

Numbers aside, that seems indisputably true; but evidently it isn’t, because people are entirely capable of being nostalgic about almost any negative event. ‘The Blitz Spirit’ is remembered fondly in Britain, because the few people still alive who remember it survived it, and because it happened decades ago and bombs are no longer raining down on the UK. Cinema and television is full of nostalgia for even the darkest times, largely because people are supposed to be entertained by these things and structures, stories and likeable characters are imposed on the past to make it controllable and enjoyable. And that’s just as true for the harrowing ‘war is hell’ type of film as it was for The Dirty Dozen and just as true of the revisionist ‘elegiac’ Western as for the old John Wayne kind. The revisionist Westerns tend to focus on the dying days of the ‘old West’ in grimly realistic detail, but while barely acknowledging the genocide and horror that is the real historical backdrop of the period. In a way, that’s fair enough – those stories are not about that subject – but when there are not only no (or very few) films about that subject, and it is barely even acknowledged by ‘official’ narratives of taught history, it’s a stark and telling omission.

It’s my personal feeling that nothing truly good is produced by adversity, or at least that if it is, that doesn’t offset what may have been lost. Which isn’t to deny that people are amazing, resourceful, resilient and inspiring; they are. If every golden age masks a dark age, it’s probably true too that every dark age is shot through with some elements of positivity, although I won’t scrutinise that statement too closely. Countries which were colonised by the British Empire (or indeed any empire) manage to grow and assert their independence and define their own cultures, which is good; but we can never know what or who was lost when their histories were derailed.

I love blues music (and indeed the whole phenomenon of western popular music which mostly grew from it), but again; we can never know what would have been, or what would exist now, had those creative energies not been re-directed by a couple of hundred years of slavery and exploitation. Individuals are capable of achieving almost superhuman feats of bravery and resourcefulness when facing adversity; escaping from abusers and kidnappers, rescuing people from disasters etc. But no-one in their right mind would – I hope – recommend that young people undergo these kinds of ordeals in order to fully achieve their potential.

I don’t think it’s particularly useful for individuals (although governments and institutions are a very different thing) to feel guilty about the deeds of the people of the past (or to be proud of the achievements of the past, really), but I also see no need to pretend that – for example – because India has a big railway network, the British Empire did something positive by oppressing the country’s people and culture and stealing its resources. Countries that weren’t colonised by the UK or Belgium or France or Russia have railways too. Nothing good came of the British in India. India survived anyway, just as people survive catastrophes everywhere and achieve amazing things in doing so. But you don’t celebrate an earthquake because people survive it and thrive afterwards.

Lou Reed and Rachel in 1977 (Mick Rock)

So much for impersonal nostalgia – the personal kind is in many ways very similar, if less destructive. I’ve always been a nostalgic person; both for things I don’t remember, or that were long before ‘my time’ (you name it; silent movies, the 1960s, the Weimar Republic, Hong Kong cinema of the 70s, the Northern Renaissance, the Scottish Enlightenment, 80s teen movies) and, more naturally perhaps, for things within own experience. One of the things that initially made me write this was a reference in Anthony DeCurtis’ biography Lou Reed – A Life (John Murray, 2017)* about Reed’s 70s partner/muse Rachel, a fascinating figure who seems to have vanished into history. In Googling her I discovered various sites about vanishing/vanished aspects of New York and, because old photographs are endlessly fascinating, somehow segued from that to the vanished Jewish East End of London and the vanished and vanishing everything of everywhere. But if the Jewish East London of the 1960s and the underbelly of 70s New York are irretrievable, then so is one’s own childhood, not that one wants to retrieve it, exactly.

* It’s an excellent book, but one which illustrates some of my points; Lou Reed spent most of his adult life complaining about his conservative 1950s childhood, but DeCurtis himself has a more rose-tinted view of the period, saying “In stark contrast to the identity politics of today, assimilation was the order of the day…and none of Reed’s friends, Jewish or not, recall incidents of anti-Semitism or bias” (p.14) – fair enough you would think, except that just 22 pages later he also says, ‘Richard Mishkin was a fraternity brother of Allan Hyman’s in Sigma Alpha Mu, a so-called Jewish fraternity because at the time Jews were not permitted in many other fraternities.” (p.36)

Most of the polaroids etc that make up the ever-browsable (later note; but sadly diminished) Internet K-hole appear to be American, but any child of the 80s will recognise the texture and aura of the era we grew up in. When George Orwell wrote (I think in The Lion and the Unicorn, but I might be wrong; I’ll check) – “What have you in common with the child of five whose photograph your mother keeps on the mantelpiece? Nothing, except that you happen to be the same person” he was putting his finger on one of the strange paradoxes of culture, heritage and nostalgia. The memories I have of the 1980s are made up of a distorted, child’s-eye view of events and culture which is truly mine, plus things I know now that I didn’t know then, plus other peoples’ memories, TV and films. The most potent sources of nostalgia seem to be – as the makers of shows like Stranger Things and Dark, and films like Super 8 and (too many to list) are very aware –  the things you didn’t notice that you had noticed, the most ephemeral details; jingles from adverts, fonts, packaging, slang.

It’s an interesting point. The fleetingness with which you experience things has nothing to do with their power as memories. I have no idea what the first horror film I saw was, but I do know that a scene on some TV show where skinheads (or possibly a single skinhead) glued a man’s hands to the wall of a lift/elevator scared me as a child and stayed with me for a long time. Maybe that was because I used to see skinheads around on the streets (you had to watch the colour of the laces in their Doc Martens to see if they were ‘bad’ skinheads or not – though they were probably kids too, I now realise). I also know now (but didn’t then) that these were the second wave of skinheads, which is why I also saw Oi! written on various walls around the town; at the time I don’t think I ever made the connection. Again, when one thinks of the impact of very small occurrences it shows how impossible a really objective view of history is. I no longer bear any high school grudges, but without really thinking about it, there are many small and/or random sneers and insults from my youth that have stayed with me in vivid detail, along with the people and places involved. Similarly (but nicer) I will eternally feel grateful to two beautiful black girls in Camden in (I think) 1990 or 91 who made remarks to me which, even at the time were ‘not politically correct’ but which pleased me immensely; it is among the very few teenage memories that boosted rather than eroded my confidence. A tiny thing, barely even an ‘incident’, but a big deal to a painfully shy adolescent. What to make of such a minor, slightly embarrassing episode? I can still vividly remember – although it was not a rarity – my whole face burning when I blushed. People often remarked on the redness of my blushes and I remember – not even slightly nostalgically – being compared to a tomato, being told I looked like I would ‘burst’ etc at high school. And thinking about it, there’s no real conclusions to draw from that memory except that real nostalgia, unlike the nostalgia industry (“it was the 70s: Buckaroo!“, to quote Alan Partridge) is particular, not general. The Camden episode includes references to youth, gender, race etc, but it has nothing important to do with any those factors and I doubt if the two girls remembered it even days later. These are not the kinds of incidents which are worthy of a biographer’s attention;  but they define my youth every bit as much as the music I listened to, the sweets I remember that no longer exist, or the clothes I wore.

My particular 80s nostalgia has less to do with “the 80s” in the sense it that it appears in TV shows and films as it does a litany of gloomy-sounding things: the urban decay of 60s and 70s council estates, indoor markets, army stores, arcades, brutalist churches that harmonised with those reinforced concrete towers that the fire brigade used for practise. This is a kind of eeriness as nostalgia; reflected in my liking for empty streets and art that represents empty streets: Algernon Newton, Maurice Utrillo, Takanori Oguiss , the photography of Masataka Nakano and taken to its extreme, Giorgio de Chirico, where the emptiness isn’t truly vacant so much as  it is pregnant , reminding me always of  – nostalgia again – the ruined city of Charn in CS Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew (by far my favourite Narnia book) – which made a huge impression on me as a child. Charn may even be where my liking for such things as ‘urbex’ photography, like that of Andre Govia, and of course, The Ruin, quoted way back in the first paragraph, comes from.

The Red Tower by Giorgio de Chirico
Street scene by Takanori Oguiss

“The passing of time and all of its crimes, is making me sad again” – sadly, one of those crimes is that when I first heard that line (from Rubber Ring by The Smiths) in 1989 or thereabouts, Morrissey seemed to be on the side of the downtrodden and marginalised, whereas now he seems to be one of that increasing number of people who pretends that the mainstream of British culture is itself somehow being marginalised; which is not only patently ridiculous but impossible – and nostalgic, of course.

There’s a whole culture industry with its own cultural shorthand that has been constructed to bolster the standardised view of any given period. Nowadays, there’s whole genre of TV shows where any decade can be summed up by some B-list cultural commentator or celebrity (often not old enough to remember what they are “remembering”) saying “He/she/it were mad, weren’t they?” about some figurehead of the era. Not so great of course, when that figurehead turns out to be Jimmy Savile or Rolf Harris, at which point even nostalgia, like history, has to be revised.

The beauty of all nostalgia is that it’s selective. The 70s that Morrissey seems to  feel nostalgic about (in the true, mixed feelings sense; witness the whole of Viva Hate, which I love) wasn’t ‘better’ than nowadays, but the writer of its songs was young then; he isn’t now. There are younger people who are also nostalgic about the 70s, or the 80s, because they see the partial versions of those era(s) preserved by those who were there then, or who pretend to have been. The people who mourn the loss of the blitz spirit are really no different from me wishing I’d seen the Beatles. The people who are nostalgic for the Empire will (hopefully) never have to deal with being in charge of a mass of powerless, subject people whose resources they are stealing (or be the subject of the same), but they can enjoy the things that Empire brought to all of our lives. The ‘glory’ of Empire, like the mythical ages of Greece and Rome, and the giants that the Anglo-Saxon poet pondered over, only exists now as the faded, distorted memory of a faded, distorted memory. Like the 70s, like the 80s, like the 2010s, like yesterday, they are wonderful and terrible because they can never come again.

Happy New Year!

 

A note on the text above: throughout this article  (and many others) I refer to ‘people’ and ‘humankind’ in what is intended to be an inclusive kind of way, referring to people of all races, genders or indeed lack of gender. I probably also refer to gender in a binary sense, partly due to context, partly no doubt through laziness. However, I do have a tendency to not use the term ‘cis’, unless absolutely necessary – for me personally, the word ‘women’ includes trans women and the word men includes trans men. I don’t intend any offence by this, but I also don’t really mind if anyone is offended. I think it’s a shame that something as basic (if not simple) as a person’s gender should be a matter of opinion, but so it seems to be. My own view is that the contents of someone’s underwear is none of my business unless they explicitly make it so.

Inevitably, the Releases of the Year 2017 (part two)

 

The list continues, at this point with no rhyme or reason and in no particular order, so…

The Doom Trip label went from strength to strength in 2017. The Doom Mix Vol 1. compilation should be heard as a matter of course (personal favourite: the brilliantly atmospheric Sink Into Skin by Unbloom that reminds me of post-punk/early goth things like Bauhaus and The Cure but has a tune I haven’t heard before), but in addition they released some fantastic albums this year, the two standouts (for me) being –

Rangers – Texas Rock Bottom 

Rangers – Texas Rock Bottom

I haven’t heard a lot of Rangers’ previous stuff, but the bits I remember are kind of lo-fi/psych/chillwave/Ariel Pink-ish – no bad thing, but not really my thing. Texas Rock Bottom is a different beast entirely. More song-based, it has a timeless melodic appeal, in some ways reminiscent of the more laid-back US indie rock of the 80s/90s, like The Replacements or early REM, with a Byrdsian jangle but also some distinctively underground/indie quirks; It’s really good.

 

 

 

Skyjelly – Blank Panthers/Priest, Expert Or Wizard

Skyjelly – Blank Panthers/Priest, Expert Or Wizard

This long, bizarre album/double album is an ear/brain-addling mix of yammering experimental things: psychedelia/krautrock/punk/no wave/pop/noise and stuff like that – it’s not all great, but there’s so much of it, and it’s so completely peculiar that after months of listening I’m still not used to it, but it’s still good.

 

 

 

 

My Favourite Things – Fly I Will, Because I Can (self-release)

My Favourite Things – Fly I Will, Because I Can

I can’t remember how I came across  Dorothea Tachler’s Brooklyn-based band, My Favourite Things, but their self-released album Fly I Will, Because I Can became one of my favourite things (…) in 2017. Melancholy, warm and dreamy, Tachler and her bandmates have created an affecting, beautiful and strangely intimate listening experience. I kind of don’t want anyone else to like it, but I also want everyone to hear it; that kind of album.

 

 

Grift – Arvet (Nordvis)

Grift – Arvet

I’m not sure that I like Arvet quite as much as Grift’s brilliant debut Syner; but I’m almost certain that it’s a better album. In many ways it’s very similar – bare, sparse, wintry pastoral black metal-inflected but very individualistic atmospheric music. In fact, Erik Gärdefors’ vision has barely changed, perhaps it’s just that it’s familiar to me now, so feels less like a forlorn soul wandering the woods and more like Grift; great album either way.

 

 

 

More to follow, no doubt!

 

 

Inevitably, the releases of the year 2017 (part one)

 

I’ve been thinking about the releases of the year for the past few weeks and made some (naturally very similar) lists for various places, so I thought I’d begin my countdown of releases of the year (as usual, in no order) here with some worthy things that I somehow overlooked/forgot about when compiling my other lists. So just to start…

Quinta – The Quick Of The Heart (Peeler Records)

Quinta – The Quick of the Heart

Released back in July, The Quick Of The Heart is a beautiful and magical album that took a while to grow on me, but that has stayed with me through the many ups and downs of a year that was often not much fun. Quinta is a multi-instrumentalist and member of the experimental string quartet Collectress (whose superb 2014 album Mondegreen was my release of the year back then) and this album ranges from minimalistic piano pieces to lushly arranged songs, all with their own unique, delicate atmosphere. The album is more song-oriented than I expected, and the fresh, breezily unorthodox tunes are both accessible and unusual. The Quick Of The Heart is one of those albums that creates its own discrete sound world, quite unlike anything else I can think of; a lovely, refreshing record.

Recommended track: A Tutorial For Little Karen

Julie’s HaircutInvocation And Ritual Dance Of My Demon Twin (Rocket Recordings)

Julie’s Haircut – Invocation And Ritual Dance Of My Demon Twin

This great album was released back in February, far back enough, in fact that I thought it was out last year. While I like some psych/spacerock/krautrock type stuff, the problem with the genre (if you can call it that) for me is that it can be completely immersive and thrilling or, if not feeling it, extremely boring. Italian band Julie’s Haircut are not immune to the latter kind of non-hypnotic meandering, but when they are good they’re great and there is far more good stuff on this album than filler.

 

Recommended track: Zukunft

 

Jesca HoopMemories Are Now (Sub Pop)

Jesca Hoop – Memories Are Now

Again, released at the beginning of the year and so escaping my lists until now, Jesca Hoop’s latest album is a superbly focussed set of songs grounded in folk, Americana and experimental pop. Any way of describing it makes it sound more complicated than it is, and the most obvious points of comparison (she occasionally sounds a bit like Kate Bush) are a bit misleading; but it’s a really good album.

 

 

Recommended track – Unsaid

Zeal & Ardor The Devil Is Fine (self-release)

Zeal & Ardor – the Devil Is Fine

Z&A’s black metal-infused blues or whatever you want to call it is one of the strangest-sounding (as a description), but at the same time most accessible (as music) melanges of styles I’ve come across; unholy gospel music that gets better and stranger every time I hear it.

 

 

 

 

Recommended track: Blood In The River

IslajaTarrantulla (Svart Records)

Islaja – Tarrantulla

I didn’t really realise I liked this album a lot until songs from it kept popping into my head at random times after I’d given it a few listens. Over the last few weeks though, the slightly queasy mix of experimental synth pop, honking sax, Blade Runner-atmospherics and alternately fragile and vocoder-heavy vocals has proved extremely addictive; I like it a lot.

 

 

 

Recommended track: Sun luona taas

 

and more later…

Anatomy of an Earworm

Despite the title, this isn’t really about earworms as such – although they certainly have a place here – this is to do with the background music/soundtrack to your – or my – life. There are serious, life-changing conditions like ‘Musical Ear Syndrome” (kind of a musical tinnitus) where the sufferer constantly hears music and in the cases of artists like Kristin Hersh or Nile Rodgers, these kinds of phenomena (not that theirs are the same, as far as I know) can be part of what fuels their creativity. That isn’t me. What I – and I suspect many people – have, is songs I already know, playing ‘in the background’ more or less constantly.

I decided to try to keep track, for a day, of what those songs were. Not an easy task, as trying to remember them if one doesn’t make a note of it is extremely difficult, once the moment has passed – and also because it seems likely that focusing on that background noise might well alter the experience.

Be that as it may, I tried to make a note whenever I could throughout the day, of what was ‘playing’ – and it’s an odd mixture. Most surprising to me are how few of the songs are ones I would normally listen to, or like, or have listened to or heard (to my knowledge) recently. Also surprising is the segue from one to another, which happens mostly without noticing and which seems to have no logic to it that I can see. The medleys are even stranger. Also odd that events like conversations, concentrating on work, watching TV etc seem to have little or no impact on the flow of the music, it just gets quieter for a bit.

So here, with many gaps, and with a few notes and repeat offenders marked in red – is my internal playlist for today. It is still ongoing of course (currently James Taylor’s cover of Tom Waits’ Shiver Me Timbers). I don’t see any patterns, but I do notice that most of these songs are surprisingly cheerful given what I mostly listen to on purpose; so that’s nice.

The day began around 6am with a shower; a key place for earworms and related music, in my experience – without further ado…

  • Barbizon by Debz
  • Don’t You Want Me by The Human League (I have never liked this song)
  • Young Hearts Run Free by Candi Staton
  • What’s The Frequency, Kenneth, by R.E.M.
  • Keep on Running by The Spencer Davis Group (but with silly alternative lyrics relating to what I was doing at work at the time)
  • Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da by The Beatles (one of the few Beatles songs I really dislike)
  • Van der Valk theme tune (I have never seen Van der Valk, why do I know the theme tune??)
  • Save Your Love by Renée and Renato
  • Street Life by The Crusaders
  • I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend by The Ramones
  • Smokebelch I by The Sabres of Paradise (mainly just the bass)
  • Your Smiling Face by James Taylor
  • Orfeo ed Euridice – a particular bit from (I think) Act 1 of Gluck’s baroque opera
  • The Invisible Man by Elvis Costello
  • Knock Out Eileen by LL Cool J & Dexy’s Midnight Runners (strangely likeable mashup given my hatred of one of these songs – found on youtube)
  • Theme to Monty Python’s Flying Circus
  • Only Shallow by My Bloody Valentine (actually a non-existent, jaunty , squeaky synth-pop cover of the tune of the verse to this song, I’d like to really hear it)
  • jingle from a TV advert for Mitchell’s Self Drive c. 1981 (with the lyric that kids used to sing to it: ‘Mitchell’s Self Drive/Where people eat pies”)
  • I Only Want To Be With You by Dusty Springfield
  • It’s A Shame by Bilbo Baggins
  • Temples of Syrinx by Rush
  • Rockit by Herbie Hancock
  • NIB by Black Sabbath
  • Car Thief by The Beastie Boys
  • Hook It Up by The Donnas
  • How Deep Is Your Love by The Bee Gees (the verse of this song gets stuck in my head often)
  • Your Woman by White Town (genuine earworm that was stuck in my head for days, I had no memory of what it was, didn’t remember the lyrics and had to search for ages to discover what it was; irony – hated it then, hate it now)
  • The Eye of the Witch by King Diamond
  • Good Times, Bad Times by Led Zeppelin
  • Georgie Girl by The Seekers
  • Uh-Oh, Love Comes To Town by Talking Heads
  • Bergerac theme tune (not actually seen Bergerac since the mid 80s)
  • I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts (just the tune, but still!???)
  • The World In My Eyes by Depeche Mode
  • medley: You Can Call Me Al by Paul Simon & Down Under by Men At Work (had this bizarre medley playing in my head every morning for months; oddly when it’s not ‘playing’ I can’t work out where the segue happens)
  • The Neverending Story by Limahl
  • Good Times by Chic
  • Fascination by David Bowie
  • Lovely Day by the Pixies
  • Graceland by Paul Simon
  • Shiver Me Timbers… but that you know.

Hmm.

 

 

“Turmoil, Ecstasy, Violence and Isolation” – a conversation with Wreche

the stunning artwork for Wreche’s album, by Max Moriyama and Athena Wisotsky

 The self-titled debut album by Wreche, a duo consisting of John Steven Morgan (piano/vocals), and Barret Baumgart (drums), released by Fragile Branch Recordings back in May, is undoubtedly one of the most eccentric and striking releases of the year. Almost certainly a love/hate kind of record, this is essentially a black metal album, albeit without most of the musical elements that make up traditional heavy metal (guitars, basically). The band’s name is an Old English word meaning affliction or calamity, deep distress or misery and it’s an appropriately extreme, unsettling and deeply affecting album.  In fact, it’s quite unlike anything else I’ve heard and so it seemed like a good idea to ask John, (who, incidentally, also has an excellent non-Wreche album, Solo Piano Works coming out soon)  about it – and so…

The most obvious, because most unusual, element in Wreche’s music is your use of the piano. In ‘standard heavy metal’ terms this is a strange and some would say incompatible choice, but somehow it feels absolutely right for the black metal aesthetic, why do you think that is?

 “Thank you. We found our skill set and taste fit naturally with black metal. There is so much flexibility compositionally—from long, almost shoe-gaze atmospheric arrangements where the focus is less on individual notes and more on swathes of colour, to abrasive crushing passages and agonised vocals. For us, it was an ideal platform. As for the use of piano, there wasn’t much to decide —it is the instrument that I play and I’ve always played aggressively and texturally. For me, there’s an emotional continuity between metal, jazz, and romantic/modern classical music. I found metal to be the logical extension of the narrative of the piano. Rather than adding classical to metal or playing jazz that quotes metal, we wanted the piano itself to drive the music—it is a heavy instrument on its own (no pun intended) and spans a vast sonic range. It is both string and percussion.”

Perhaps a question I should have asked before the last one; do you consider Wreche to be a black metal band? 

“Everything has to be called something—it gives a clear reference point for potential listeners. Apart from loving all the great music coming out in the genre (which has definitely inspired us), we felt that metal enthusiasts, specifically “black metal” enthusiasts would be the most receptive to our style and composition. So we call it black metal, but I think there is more to it and it can resonate with those who don’t know anything about black metal. Some of the textural/formal elements conform to the genre, but I see the project as music with some classical, some jazz, and some metal—it is its own thing. The tough part about picking a genre is that we now deal with the “novelty” aspect which can be good if the music transcends it, but bad if nobody considers it apart from the black metal foundation.” 

Obviously, as the composers of your music you are in control of it, but would you say it’s a tool for expressing what you want to express, or do you find that the act of making music itself takes you in directions you hadn’t necessarily considered? 

“A little bit of both. With the first, I think expressing an emotion through your instrument is a gradual process. I can feel a certain way, but it won’t necessarily translate into piano music that day. The compositions took months so there were spurts of turmoil, ecstasy, violence and isolation where I could write passages same-day for days at a time locked in the studio. On the other hand, some emotions had to settle in and eventually work their way out. As for the latter case, the act of making music influencing the compositions themselves, that also played a part. I write from the keyboard, so errors or occasional stand-out phrases in practicing one thing led to new parts. I am always open to the focal point of a passage changing emphasis if it leads to more effective, evocative music.” 

Compared to other forms of metal, black metal has often been involved with spiritual, metaphysical or philosophical concerns, rather than purely earthly ones, with the forms of the music acting almost as a catalyst/lightning rod for the energies that bands are channelling; is the music a tool in this way for Wreche? 

“In a way it is, however I don’t live in the forest, outer space, or subscribe to religion. I do look at the stars and feel awe, weightless existential ecstasy, and sadness. But, I think the music comes from earth. I grew up in the desert, but for the last 13 years I’ve been traversing and staring at city blocks. I play music in the street for a living and have always only been able to afford housing in blighted neighbourhoods. The spiritual or philosophical drive, if you can call it that, comes from my observations of the human condition and metaphorical “desert” in the cities we exist – especially in Los Angeles. There are so many broken people, crammed to capacity on freeways, office buildings, sidewalks, who are barely staying afloat or are lost altogether. They are in a chokehold – always needing money, never having enough of it, and never able to catch a breath. All the while we have a steadily rising wealth inequality, a dying earth, and booming technology designed to express our individuality and our successes. The misery, anxiety, irony and sadness of it all is overwhelming. In this way, I think the music confronts and reflects.” 

 The album has a very intense, pervasive haunted quality, is that something that you felt while making it?

 “Definitely. Besides the actual tone I managed to get out of the piano, this album partially reflects on my own life, personal growth and the repurposing of my playing style. Whether through piano lines, lyrics, song titles or samples, the music is peppered with snapshots and memories from the past. Another factor was probably that I spent almost a straight year living out of the rehearsal studio during this time. It was extremely isolating, money was tight, and I was in a new environment having just left my previous band in Oakland to work on this album. Some nights were real bad, and the city has that effect on people—high anxiety, sleepless nights, anonymity. I felt invisible roaming the streets or looking out the window, always in my head, like I was dead already. A real ghoul.

Barret also had recently completed a book basically about climate change, geoengineering, and human extinction—I know he brought that cheerful perspective to some of the writing as well.” 

Do you find the surroundings of a recording studio a conducive environment for making this kind of music? Does the environment affect the feeling you capture when recording? 

“I really do. Some people can write anywhere, but I like feng-shui. Our studio, by pure chance, has a wall of windows that overlook the Los Angeles river and a view of the complete LA skyline. It was beautiful at times and oppressive or sinister at others. We opted to record the album ourselves so that there would be no time limit or stress about how much money a formal studio costs per hour. In this way, I was able to make decisions at a pace that allowed the music to develop over several drafts.” 

Your album feels like a strangely intimate kind of black metal chamber music, which could translate very well to extremely atmospheric live shows, is playing live something that interests you?

“I think the music, while abrasive, is really something that works well played loud and alone—maybe in the dark. We would love to play live shows, but so far, our focus was to make the best music we could with our respective instruments. Now that we have finished the first album, I’m anxious and excited about getting back to writing and trying new things. However, if the opportunity arises to travel and play, I’ve been working on several ideas for that. I would like to involve Max [Moriyama] and Athena [Witosky]’s artwork in an impactful way, and if possible, some of the Wreche film Zack Kasten is creating for the project.” 

Unlike the majority of new black metal releases, where the listener can easily pinpoint key influences, Wreche have a sound that is completely unfamiliar in the metal genre, are your musical influences mainly from the black metal world or beyond?

I love black metal and the greater genre of metal, but my background and taste started with Pink Floyd as a teen. I delved heavily into classical and jazz too—which I think set me up nicely for metal. I would say apart from Pink Floyd, huge influences on me musically are Hella, Ethan Iverson of the Bad Plus, Jackie Mclean, Thelonious Monk, Eric Dolphy, Chopin, Shostokovich, Beethoven, Scriabin, and Rachmaninov. Recently in metal, we both look to Ulcerate and Krallice. Lately, I’ve really been enjoying Ultha’s Pain Cleanses Every Doubt and this CD I have in my van of Sviatoslav Richter playing Scriabin Etudes and Poemes. Richter is the master.” 

Do you see Wreche as a band with a specific overarching concept/philosophy, or can it tackle any direction/theme you have in mind at any given time?

I think Wreche is, by design, an open platform. It isn’t based on a particular philosophy, just a reflection of the human condition filtered through our perception. Black metal is a great starting platform, as I’ve said, but I can see a lot of potential with these two instruments, the potential even for evolution outside of the genre. The focus will always be on writing the best possible music—to push our limitations, with all other styles and textures as tools.”

Many thanks to John for the interview! Check out Wreche on Facebook

Wreche photo by Nestor Guevara

Right vs. Good – a rambling digression about the arts

 

This is not all about black metal, or all about music even, but it essentially began with the De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas Alive album that Mayhem, the pioneers of Norwegian black metal, released towards the end of last year.

PART 1: MUSIC

mayem

Despite somewhat lukewarm expectations, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas Alive is a very good album and therefore highly recommended to Mayhem fans, especially those who value the band’s early/90s output above their subsequent work.  Like the Velvet Underground’s Live MCMCXIII album (released, coincidentally, while the Norwegian black metal scene was at its most intense and chaotic), it seemed beforehand like there was too much water under the bridge, not just within the band itself, but in music, in the world even, for any of the very particular magic the band had created at its peak to have survived. Arguably this was even more so in the case of Mayhem, because the 1994 De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas album, iconic though it is, is to many people (though I am not one of them) itself only a shadowy version of what it should have been, had the band’s classic lineup survived. In that sense (and only really in that sense), De Mysteriis… is strangely like The Beach Boys’ Smiley Smile (1967), a very peculiar and almost entirely inappropriate comparison that I’ll make again later.

So; a good album, and very likely a great show if you were lucky enough to be there; the band is powerful and the music is atmospheric, as it should be. Attila Csihar (vocals) gives a typically eccentric but (for that reason) typically great performance; Necrobutcher (bass) and Hellhammer (drums) bring the irreplaceable aura of authenticity to the proceedings, while also generally playing very well. But for all that Teloch and Ghul are, by any method that exists for quantifying such things, far “better” guitarists than original Mayhem guitarist/founder/composer Øystein ‘Euronymous’ Aarseth was (and in fact both of them are fantastic throughout), the guitar solo on ‘Freezing Moon’ (the yardstick by which I measure all performances of the song) isn’t right. So there’s that. The band is not alone in this; many, many great artists have recorded good or even excellent versions of the song, and none of them (that I’ve heard at least) have got it right; not least Mayhem themselves. Rune ‘Blasphemer’ Eriksen was and is also an infinitely superior guitar player to Euronymous in most respects, but the versions of ‘Freezing Moon’ on the Blasphemer-era live albums Mediolanum Capta Est (1999), Live in Marseilles (2001), European Legions (2001) etc, etc are far less good than the live versions of songs from the band’s then-recent albums.

All that said, Euronymous himself didn’t always play the solo right either (actually, the version on De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas itself is ‘good enough’ – in that sense, the new live album does do it justice); but in the definitive versions of the song (the best probably being the one on the ‘official bootleg’ Live In Leipzig (1990) – there’s some slightly obsessive stuff about the 1990s live recordings here) it’s a thing of spectral, affecting majesty; quite at odds with the prevailing tone of frozen emotionless-ness that black metal is popularly supposed to embody. Indeed, it’s one of the central paradoxes of the genre that, for all its focus on the cold and dead, it’s a kind of music that is all about extreme emotion and feeling. More than most music in fact, black metal stands or falls on feeling; that hardest of musical elements to define or indeed to create deliberately. Dressing in black leather and spikes and painting your face is one thing, but you don’t scream and cut yourself like Mayhem’s Dead (Per Yngve Ohlin) or Maniac (Sven Erik Kristiansen) because you don’t care about anything. You hopefully don’t do it because it’s cool either; and when Dead was doing it c.1988-90, it really wasn’t cool. So anyway; on the new live album, the all-important solo isn’t right, not because the right notes aren’t played in the right order, but because – although it certainly sounds like the band are playing with passion and intensity – it doesn’t feel right. Still, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas Alive is a very good album. But is it as good as Live In Leipzig? Unless you value listenability and high quality sound above all else – which is in itself fair enough and certainly easier on the ears – the answer has to be no. Still, it’s an album very worth having if, like me, your favourite Mayhem songs (mine is ‘Life Eternal’) were never in the band’s live set while Dead was alive (ah, the fun of writing about someone called Dead).

So anyway, that solo; it’s good, so why isn’t it right? On the face of it, this could be one of those cases where sterile perfection* loses out to inspiration and/or passion but I don’t think it is. In any case, the technical perfection vs passion/originality argument is one I don’t really believe in. It gets used a lot when talking about people covering Jimi Hendrix songs, or when people are being insulting about Yngwie Malmsteen, so let’s call it the Malmsteen/Hendrix correlation.

*for all his precision when on form, Euronymous himself was mostly not notable for sterile perfection; for example it sounds awfully like he plays the all-important solo in the wrong key on the notorious but mostly brilliant Dawn of the Black Hearts bootleg

Straight away, any comparison of this type shows that the criteria involved are completely useless for analysing music (or indeed any art form short of architecture, where a lack of technical skill would have disastrous results). Here’s a syllogism of sorts: Yngwie Malmsteen can play Hendrix’s solos but Jimi Hendrix probably couldn’t have played Yngwie Malmateen’s – so therefore Yngwie is a better guitarist, right? Well, obviously (at least I think it’s obvious), no.
On the face of it that might seem to mean that technical skill is not the most important factor in being a great guitar player, which is true – but is not the whole truth. Yngwie may not be better than Hendrix, whatever that would mean, but nevertheless he is a great guitar player, and he would not be a better one if he played more like Jimi Hendrix, or for that matter, if he played more like an arch passion-over-precision player like Steve Jones from the Sex Pistols, James Williamson of The Stooges or Johnny Thunders. Moreover, Yngwie’s music at its best is entirely passionate and feeling-ful, while also being extremely technical. Like the classic virtuosi through the ages, Yngwie happens to express himself best through the medium of extreme technical ability. As did Jimi Hendrix of course, in a less neat and streamlined/traditional kind of way. But at the same time, to say that Malmsteen or Hendrix would have been better in the New York Dolls than Johnny Thunders, or have been better in the Ramones than Johnny Ramone is also very obviously untrue. This is a very long way around just to say artists are at their best while being themselves, but that is probably one of the logical conclusions, if there are any; Euronymous was great at being Euronymous, while Teloch & Ghul are probably best at being Teloch & Ghul. If they were great at being Euronymous then they would be better off being in a Mayhem tribute band than being in Mayhem.

the three ages of Smile
the three ages of Smile

To bring back the Beach Boys again, since I said I would, one of the closest parallels for the kind of nonsense I have been writing about De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas Alive that  I can think of, is with the odd trio of records, Smiley Smile (1967), Brian Wilson Presents Smile (2004) and The Smile Sessions (2011, recorded 1965-71). Brian Wilson probably isn’t the only person who rates Brian Wilson’s Smile the most highly of the three, but he is definitely in a small minority. Smiley Smile may have essentially been a work of expediency, a slightly silly mish-mash – albeit one full of incredible music – completed for partly commercial reasons, but it’s nevertheless imbued with the atmosphere of the psychedelic zeitgeist of 1967; one of the elements which is most obviously missing from Brian Wilson’s Smile (the Beach Boys being the other, even more obvious one.) It is, however, a neat, sunny, well-recorded, impeccably performed collection of songs. More, in a way, like an orchestra recording a symphony than a band playing an album. Meanwhile, The Smile Sessions has it all; inventiveness, insanity, atmosphere – it is practically all zeitgeist – fantastic songs and, at its heart, a brilliant if somewhat confused band, often audibly grappling with material which is making their brains hurt. Still, the Malmsteen/Hendrix correlation doesn’t work here. Brian Wilson’s band is flawless in their technical interpretation of the music – but no more so than the Beach Boys were, and for all their undoubted skill, they are certainly not better musicians than the Beach Boys either. What’s missing is the messiness, the inspiration; which makes one wonder about modern interpretations of the great classical works versus the performances in the composers’ lifetime. If Purcell for example, could hear a modern performance of Dido and Aeneas would it sound  as plastic to him as the least exciting moments of Brian Wilson’s Smile do? We can never know, which is probably just as well.

The problem of living up to one’s past work is one that any successful artist with a long career comes up against. In music (that I like) there are some very obvious examples; when Paul McCartney performs Beatles songs or Morrissey performs Smiths songs, there is obviously an authenticity there that is lacking in a cover by another artist; and often they sound good and the fans love them, but no-one would pretend that it’s the same as hearing The Beatles or The Smiths. That of course may be as much due to the listener as the performer, but not always. Black Sabbath has had several vocalists who are infinitely ‘better’ at singing than Ozzy Osbourne, but not one of them could sing ‘Iron Man’ without sounding a bit laughable. Bruce Dickinson is the only Iron Maiden vocalist who can sing ‘The Number Of the Beast’ et al correctly, but he doesn’t sing Paul Di’Anno’s songs as well as Paul Di’Anno did. And that’s just the singers. You would think any guitar player with the ability and the right equipment could sound like Tony Iommi, but even on the strangest, least Black Sabbath-like Black Sabbath albums, the guitars sound right, where even in the best covers, they usually don’t, quite. I was lucky enough to meet Thomas Gabriel Fischer of Celtic Frost/Tryptikon a few years ago and asked him how – given the multitude of different guitars, amps and production budgets he has had over the years – his guitar tone (not his style or playing, just the actual sound it makes) has remained so recognisable from the first Hellhammer demo to the latest Triptikon album. He told me ‘it’s the way I play it.’ And even though it’s hard to see how that can be right, it must be.

All of the above reinforces that simple and obvious point; art is subjective, so be yourself. No-one can be you like you can. But again, that is not the whole story. As the evolution of Smile suggests, the further one travels from the initial inspirational impulse, the less powerful the vision can be; which makes sense and seems to be confirmed by the work of many visual artists and writers.

PART TWO: THE VISUAL ARTS

Partly, the perception that art can overwork and dilute the original vision comes from modernist taste; the revolt against academic art that began with the Romantic movement and was confirmed by following generations of artists and theoreticians all the way through to the 1960s, looking to (what they sometimes patronisingly perceived) as ‘untutored’ art produced by cultures other than their own, ‘naive’ artists, the mentally ill,  children; people who they felt were closer to the unadulterated forces of creativity than the trained professional artist, writer or musician. The willingness and ability to enjoy the incomplete, sketchy and unfinished (a classic example; John Constable’s rough oil sketches vs. his highly finished works) is perhaps a mostly modern phenomenon, but I don’t think it’s just pretentiousness. In Hans Holbein’s great portraits of the 1500s, such as those of Lady Audley and Lady Guildford, something – some kind of vitality – has been lost – or perhaps traded – the fleeting for the permanent – between the original pencil sketch and the final painting.

Hans Holbein the Younger - Lady Guildford
Hans Holbein the Younger – Lady Guildford

Similarly, Ingres, one of the great technicians of the neoclassical period, could produce a painting of skill and beauty like the 1807 portrait of Madame Devauçey, but somewhere seems to have lost something of the life that was so perfectly captured in his original study. And the moral of this is? Is there one? Capturing something and creating something are not the same thing, and anyway, painting a portrait is both. Not only essentially ‘realistic’ artists like Holbein and Ingres, but also, arguably, artists like Brian Wilson, Jimi Hendrix, Yngwie Malmsteen and Euronymous are doing both; it’s just that away from ‘realism’ of one kind or another, the dividing line between capturing and creation is eroded, sometimes to the point of non-existence. Inspiration isn’t one, unchanging thing; Live in Leipzig doesn’t capture the first, time Euronymous played/created the solo – it is simply the best version he happened to play while being recorded  – and for all I know he preferred the final version on De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas anyway, just as Ingres almost certainly preferred the finished painting of Madame Devauçey, not least because he had managed to replace the fleeting, lifelike effect of the sketch with something classic, monumental and perfect.

Ingres - Lady Devauçay (1807)
Ingres – Lady Devauçay (1807)

PART THREE – WRITING

Writing, too has parallels with all of these things which, if anything, take this piece even further from any kind of definitive conclusion. While Wordsworth preferred his complete and, to most modern readers, slightly lifeless version of his great autobiographical poem The Prelude to the more vivid early version, it was in the nature of the work itself – the Growth of a Poet’s Mind – that the early version couldn’t be definitive in the sense that the final one is. It wasn’t supposed to be a work of youthful energy and if we prefer the young version we are almost certainly wrong to do so, from Wordsworth’s point of view. And yet it feels like The Two-Part Prelude (1798-9) and The Prelude (1805) are right, where The Prelude (1850) is only good. It’s easy to forget from Wordsworth’s later works that the aim of the Romantics was (initially at least) for the absolute opposite of an artist like Ingres; simplicity (though neoclassicism values simplicity in a different kind of way), vividness & the fleetingness of life, rather than monumentality, rigidity and academic perfection. But as The Prelude demonstrates, not all ideas are simple and not all ideas – even simple ones – are best expressed simply. But I think that our instincts tend to tell us otherwise. (I’ve said similar things while making a different point a long time ago)

Having struggled through it and even enjoyed roughly half of it on the way, I would be among the majority who agree that James Joyce’s Ulysses is absolutely his masterpiece, but by almost any criteria aside from originality (of execution, rather than theme etc) most readers would find his Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man to be ‘better’. The ‘difficult’ nature of Ulysses itself inspires a kind of confidence; while being far more ‘lifelike’ than A Portrait… it feels blatantly, intimidatingly clever, where Portrait… feels life sized and familiar. Somehow it feels like masterpieces should be clever, perhaps more than they should be enjoyable. As with music, the pigeonholing of literature into ‘popular’, ‘genre’, ‘literary’ etc creates a sense of hierarchy that is essentially meaningless. If nearly everyone likes and understands and relates to A but hardly anyone likes, understands or relates to B in what way can be better than A? What are the criteria, if not human responses to the work?technical ones? Who outside of academia cares about those? And who outside of academia cares what academics think, most of the time? But all that said, is Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man better than Ulysses? I don’t think so.

On a more homely and yet more epic scale (see: genre vs. literature), the four volumes of J.R.R. (and Christopher) Tolkien’s The War of the Ring (or indeed the full 12 volumes of The History of Middle Earth) are fascinating, engrossing and full of drama and excitement. But I don’t think anyone would pretend that it’s as good as The Lord of the Rings. This, despite the fact that the excitement of creation (the sketch vs the finished painting) is more vivid everywhere in the pages of The War of the Ring than it is in The Lord of the Rings. And yet for some reason Bingo Bolger-Baggins and Trotter have not replaced Frodo and Strider in the hearts of Tolkien fans.

So; what I am left with is platitudes and contradictions – art is not a science; sometimes inspiration is better than polish; sometimes polish is better than inspiration; sometimes simplicity is better than complexity and vice versa. Great art comes easily; great art doesn’t come easily. It’s better to be a genius than a craftsperson. Being a genius is no use unless you are also a craftsperson. Nothing is true, everything is true. So I’ll end with this; I don’t think there’s any method, scientific or otherwise, that could prove that standing in a gallery looking at the Mona Lisa is a ‘better’ experience than standing in a gallery looking at an exact reproduction of the Mona Lisa; but somehow, it is. I would like to think that, even without the knowledge and emotional baggage we bring to these things, that that is still true. But it might not be. Anyway, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas Alive is really good, but that solo on ‘Freezing Moon’ isn’t quite right.

 

Weekly Update: Complicated Comforts

For a variety of reasons, it is being a slightly stressful, sleepless time, so I’ve been looking at things that are, in a variety of perhaps complicated ways, comforting or soothing (to me). I suppose comforting because it can be a relief to have one’s brain stimulated by something other than worry about external events. So, possibly comforting but at the very least distracting, hopefully. Here are a few of those things:

Listen to these:

HAV – Inver (Folkwit Records, releases 5th May 2017)

HAVI am not at all averse to folk music of various types, but I have to admit that on the whole I avoid the folk music of my own country. Partly it’s because most of the Scottish folk music I have come in contact with is dance music. I’m with Mark E. Smith on that one; I don’t want to dance (he may of course have contradicted that somewhere in the hundreds of albums he’s made since 1979). There are lots of kinds of dance music I do like, but the memory of Scottish country dancing at high school; of accordions, fiddles, ceilidhs etc; it’s just not for me. However, on their debut album, Inver, HAV make music that seamlessly combines the instrumentation and feel (and some of the tunes) of Scottish folk music with delicately atmospheric ambient electronica and field recordings and it is quite simply beautiful. Alternately bracing and embracing, it really seems to capture the feeling of the landscapes I grew up in, while also making the past (traditional songs like Loch Tay Boat SongPeggy Gordon etc) feel present and the present timeless; which is surely what folk music is all about.

Regurgitate Life – Obliteration of the Self (Truthseeker Music, out now)    

 

v200_Regurgitate_Life_Luke_Oram

This could hardly be more of a contrast to the HAV album; Regurgitate Life was once the technical death metal solo project of Sammy Urwin, but is now a duo (Sammy plus drummer Daryl Best) and not having to play everything really seems to have made Urwin experiment more with his guitar playing and composition. Whereas his (highly recommended) 2012 debut album The Human Complex was a brutally exuberant creation with more riffs per song than some bands manage per album, the new songs, without sacrificing their heaviness, refrain from throwing everything into every song. Instead, the riffs and melodies are put together as effectively as possible and the songs, for all their extremity, have far more depth than before. Also, I think this is the first Regurgitate Life recording where Urwin’s compositional and technical skills are used with the same kind of imagination he showed with Oblivionized. The Human Complex was intense, punishing and fun; Obliteration of the Self is more complex but also more complete and satisfying; a deeper, wider ranging and more considered but no less brutal death metal album; progressive without being boring. Oh, and Daryl Best’s drumming is superb throughout.

Dominic Lash Quartet – Extremophile (Iluso Records, out now)    

extrmDespite the title, after the squeaks and pings intro of Puddle Ripple (the first of several strangely tense Lash compositions), Extremophile as a whole isn’t especially extreme (unless you hate jazz in general I guess). It is certainly an imaginative and wide-ranging album, featuring both a peculiar and beautifully atmospheric jazz exploration of the already very peculiar 14th century French composition Fumeux Fume and an epic, incredibly effective version of Cecil Taylor’s Mixed Mixed. The quartet consists of Lash on bass, Ricardo Tejero (saxophone and clarinet), Alex Ward (surprisingly loud stabby guitar and clarinet) and Javier Carmona (drums and percussion) and across the seven tracks on the album they range from joyous exuberance to fragile melancholy to tranquil menace to chaotic tension. It’s a really good album.

Read these:

One of the reasons I love art history so much is that it encompasses so many things; art and history (duh), but also psychology, politics, religion, sociology, gender studies, sexuality… the list goes on. And when a really good writer combines all of these things in the study of art which is in itself fascinating, emotionally involving and intensely unsettling you have, essentially, a very good read; with pictures! One such book is Sue Taylor’s brilliant study of the German surrealist Hans Bellmer:

 

Hans Bellmer,The Anatomy of Anxiety (MIT Press, 2000)

bellmer

Whereas many of Bellmer’s admirers have sought to clear him of

 

Hans Bellmer 'La Poupee' (the Doll) 1934
Hans Bellmer ‘La Poupee’ (the Doll) 1934

charges of misogyny and paedophilia in his art, Taylor, who subjects the artist and his work to Freudian analysis, neither shies away from, nor seeks to simplify these elements in his art. Regardless of whether one regards Freud’s discoveries as a) not actually universal, but specific to a particular period/class, b) not right, or c) genuinely revealing the workings of the human mind, the approach works extremely well with Bellmer’s obsessive, symbol-rich work, relating the images closely to his biography and preoccupations, and uncovering layers of plausible meaning in the process. His art is disturbing, and was supposed to disturb; to deny its problematic aspects is to misunderstand it and ultimately underestimate and trivialise its power. Anyway; this is a really good book.

 

Also art history related, but somewhat different is:

 

Munch by Steffen Kverneland (SelfMadeHero, 2016)

Munch-A-Cover

A graphic biography of the great Norwegian Expressionist Edvard Munch, Kverneland’s book uses Munch’s own words and those of his contemporaries to create a vivid picture (literally) of the artist’s life, times and the genesis of his most famous works. The inclusion of Kverneland and his colleague Lars Fiske working out the artist’s complicated life through often amusing conversation makes it not just a biography, but also a book about writing (and drawing) a biography and as such it is a multilayered and hugely enjoyable read.

 

 

 

 

And why not watch this:

The Last Kingdom (series 2, BBC2)

 

uhtred

Okay, it’s not finished yet and could still turn bad, but after being dubious about the BBC’s adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall their adaptation of Bernard Cornwell’s Saxon Stories still makes me not grudge paying the license fee. It’s extremely well made, directed and acted, but for me what makes it is the central performance of Alexander Dreymon as Uhtred of Bebbanburg; heroic but slightly comical, even a stint as a slave couldn’t kill his basic smugness for long.

 

Play For Today – Current Playlist 8th February 2017

 

The world is not making me very happy at present (my thoughts on all that are covered to an extent here, so I won’t go on about it) – but I am still enjoying music at least, so here’s a selection of things that are currently sounding good to me:

Diamanda Galás and John Paul Jones – The Sporting Life (Mute, 1994) – I always find it surprising that a vocalist as completely extreme and melodramatic as Diamanda Galás can be as straightforwardly moving as she (sometimes) is – pretty pop by her standards, but a great album, with John Paul Jones creating perfect settings for that amazing voice.

Apokrifna Realnos
Apokrifna Realnos

Apokrifna Realnost – Na Rekah Vavilonskih (AnnapurnA Productions, coming March 2017) –  I would never have expected to love an album of archaic ritualistic/devotional music clandestinely recorded in Macedonia in the late 80s; but there you have it. It’s unsettling & deeply beautiful.

Teksti-TV 666 – 1, 2, 3 (Svart Records, 2016) The Finnish guitar-overlords are credited with playing a weird amalgam of punk, rock, shoegaze, krautrock etc; and I suppose they do, but the songs on this album are, underneath the noise and strangeness, pretty catchy indie rock that I wouldn’t expect to like but really do – it’s a great album.

Sauron – The Baltic Fog (Wheelwright Productions, reissue 2017) I wrote at length about this great Polish black metal release for Echoes and Dust, so won’t say much here. But it has all the atmosphere you’d expect from mid-90s black metal and some good tunes.

Heavy Tiger – Glitter (Wild Kingdom Records, 2017) – Very easy to like Swedish rock that is (lazy comparison) like The Ramones meets The Donnas with added glam attitude (plus good songs)

Heavy Tiger by Niclas Brunzell
Heavy Tiger by Niclas Brunzell

Blake Babies – Innocence & Experience (Mammoth Records, 1993) – On the whole I prefer Juliana Hatfield solo, but this compilation of the Blake Babies is pretty great.

David Bowie – Station to Station (RCA, 1975) – One of my favourite albums, this just seems to get better and better. Even if it just consisted of the supremely creepy title track & Word on a Wing it would be one of the best things Bowie ever recorded.

Makaya McCraven – In The Moment Deluxe Edition (International Anthem, 2016) – There’s so much amazing music in the 28 tracks here, plus literally some of the best drumming I’ve ever heard; superlative, brilliant jazz.

Tom Waits – The Heart of Saturday Night (Asylum, 1974) – Unsettling times sometimes call for comforting music, and this warm, funny, poetic and melancholy album is one of my favourites.

If I Could Kill Myself – Ballads of the Broken (self-release, 2017) – If you are unconvinced by (or just despise) depressive black metal this will probably not change your mind. Lo-fi, raw and revelling in the miserable characteristics of the genre, it’s not (and I assume isn’t meant to be) subtle, but has atmosphere and good tunes aplenty.

 

kills

MEAM, Myself & I: Part One: the formative years

 

Where does your taste in music come from? Why do you like some things but not others? It’s mysterious, but to try and find out, I thought I’d look at the issue from the (my) beginning. So what is the first music you remember hearing? For me (and I imagine many people) it’s a hard question to answer. I know what music was around when I was little; but decades of nostalgic compilations have re-shaped the music of the 1980s into that modern idea; ’80s music’ and, along with TV shows, have blurred the line between what I know I should or could have heard and what I actually remember hearing. On the other hand, like most people whose parents listen to music, some of the first things I remember hearing (in my case things that were not contemporary pop music, mostly) can be pinpointed easily to them.

Thinking back to early childhood I can picture my parents’ stereo (a wooden 70s behemoth with built-in speakers which may have once had legs but which I remember sitting on the floor) very clearly. Often, LPs would be lying on top when the lid was closed and the covers are as evocative of childhood to me as the music. Although this was the early 80s, the majority of records being played were from earlier eras; the  albums that spring to mind being The Dark Side of the Moon, Joni Mitchell’s Blue and For the Roses, Frank Zappa’s Hot Rats, Lou Reed’s Transformer, a live LP by Donovan and various albums by Bobs Marley and Dylan. More up to date, but less frequently played (as I remember it) were Talking Heads’ Remain In Light and Bowie’s Low. As is only right and proper, when I got old enough to want to listen to music myself, I initially scorned all of these things, though I eventually came round to liking almost all of them.*

fidlerBut what did I hear first?  Who knows?  I remember my mother playing guitar and singing, but ridiculously, the actual song that stands out as the first identifiable thing I remember, can name and even know some of the words to is neither parent music, nor standard chart fare; it’s Day Trip To Bangor by Fiddler’s Dram, which sets the date I began to really absorb music at around 1979; which makes sense, as until around that point I had hearing problems. As earliest memories go it could be more significant – I didn’t like it (or dislike it, as far as I remember), I can’t picture the band, it isn’t the soundtrack to a specific event. I just remember it, like I remember Crown Court and Pebble Mill At One being on TV in the afternoon if I was ill at home instead of being at school. It’s also to the end of the 70s that the first 7” single actually owned by me belongs and it’s also a typical-of-its-era novelty record, by the already long-in-the-tooth comedy group The Barron Knights – ‘A Taste of Aggro’. It’s the kind of random thing that little kids like; it features parodies of ‘The Smurf Song’ and Boney M’s ‘Rivers of Babylon’ (‘there’s a dentist in Birmingham…’ ). In my first year or two at primary school I also remember liking at least one Adam and the Ants song, I liked Toyah and Hazel O’Connor when they were on TV, I liked the disco version of the Star Wars theme and ‘Cars’ by Gary Numan.  Other music-related memories of the time are pretty vague; I remember older kids who were punks and (more scary to small-child me) skinheads, but I don’t think I ever heard their music at the time.

gimpbeast
Number of the Beast with appropriately sinister chip in the title track

It’s surprising to me to find that the first music I liked that I stayed a fan of for any length of time arrived so quickly after these things. In 1982 while I was still at Primary School, I heard ‘Run To The Hills’ by Iron Maiden and loved it. Iron Maiden divided my classmates and my parents hated them, but when Number of the Beast came out I was able to borrow the LP from one of their friends. I promptly broke it (slipped out of the inner sleeve and a strangely fangs/horns-like shard broke off of it, ruining the first track on each side) and had to pay for it. The plus side is that I still have an original pressing of Number of the Beast, albeit one that doesn’t actually have the title track (or ‘Invaders’, less of a loss) on it. A slightly later memory I think, is my dad telling me if I liked Iron Maiden, I should listen to this – and showing me the Grateful Dead’s eponymous 1971 live album. I think he presumed that the passing resemblance between the skeleton on the cover and Eddie would make it appeal to me. It didn’t – but that is probably my favourite Grateful Dead album now. Iron Maiden were destined nominally to remain my favourite band for a good four or five years, but I don’t think I really listened to them – or anything really – much until I went to high school a few years later. I don’t remember buying any other records before ’86 or so and other musical memories from the Primary school-era are thin on the ground and mostly negative.  I hated ‘Come On Eileen’ (still do), Thriller came out; I liked the video but don’t think I cared much about the music one way or the other. A lot of musical likes were inevitably more to do with context (or videos) than anything else; I quite liked Huey Lewis and the News, because of Back To The Future, I hated ‘Money For Nothing’ by Dire Straits (still do) because of the video and the band’s appearance (and, naturally,  the song itself). I quite liked Peter Gabriel’s ‘Sledgehammer’ because of the video (especially the claymation bit), I hated ‘Relax’ and ‘Two Tribes’, I didn’t like ‘Take On Me’ or its video, I quite liked The Police. I didn’t mind Spandau Ballet too much but didn’t like the way Tony Hadley held his microphone(!), I thought Whitney Houston was pretty but didn’t like ’I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ very much,… Those kinds of things.  It wasn’t really until High school that I started liking (or hearing) things that weren’t in the charts or parent music.

*The intro to Pink Floyd’s ‘Money’ still has the power to make me feel simultaneously bored and tense, however.

Coming as soon as I get around to it; Part Two (btw, the stupid title pun refers to the neuropsychological term MEAMs – ‘music-evoked autobiographical memories’)

Just for fun: the ‘I know I heard it at the time’ playlist; in chronological order – which is not necessarily how they are in my memory – definitely not all recommendations or anything (to say the least!!), and absolutely not the songs I like best from that era – these are just the ones that most evoke my early and pre-teen childhood to me…

VOL 1: 1978 – 1986

  • Kate Bush – Wuthering Heights (1978)
  • Boney M – Brown Girl in the Ring (1978)
  • Blondie – Heart Of Glass (1978)
  • Fiddler’s Dram – Day Trip to Bangor (1979)
  • Pink Floyd – Another Brick In The Wall, Part 2 (1979)
  • Lipps Inc – Funkytown (1979)
  • The Boomtown Rats – I Don’t Like Mondays (1979)
  • Gary Numan – Cars (1979)
  • Martha & the Muffins – Echo Beach (1980)
  • The Goombay Dance Band – Seven Tears (1980)
  • The Buggles – Video Killed the Radio Star (1980)
  • The Nolans – I’m In The Mood For Dancing (1980)
  • Bad Manners – Special Brew (1980)
  • Dexy’s Midnight Runners – Geno (1980) & Come On Eileen (1982)
  • The Pretenders – Brass In Pocket (1980)
  • Talking Heads – Once In A Lifetime (1980)
  • Adam And The Ants – Antmusic (1980)
  • Stevie Wonder – Happy Birthday (1980)
  • The Piranhas – Tom Hark (1980)
  • Chas & Dave – Rabbit (1980)
  • Ottawan – D.I.S.C.O. (1980)
  • Blondie – The Tide is High (1980)
  • OMD – Enola Gay (1980)
  • Diana Ross – Upside Down (1980)
  • Tony Basil – Mickey (1981)
  • Joe Dolce Music Theatre – Shaddap You Face (1981)
  • Altered Images – Happy Birthday (1981)
  • Aneka – Japanese Boy (1981)
  • Christopher Cross – Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do) (1981)
  • Shakin’ Stevens – Green Door (1981)
  • The J Geils Band – Centerfold (1981)
  • Musical Youth – Pass The Dutchie (1982)
  • Duran Duran – Hungry Like The Wolf (1982)
  • Thomas Dolby – She Blinded Me With Science (1982) and Hyperactive! (1984)
  • Kid Creole & The Coconuts – Annie I’m Not Your Daddy (1982)
  • The Belle Stars – Sign Of The Times (1982)
  • Michael Jackson – Beat It (1982)
  • Renee & Renato  – Save Your Love (1982)
  • New Edition – Candy Girl (1983)
  • David Bowie – Modern Love (1983)
  • Depeche Mode – Everything Counts (1983)
  • Mike Oldfield – Moonlight Shadow (1983)
  • Herbie Hancock – Rockit (1983)
  • Status Quo – Marguerita Time (1983)
  • Nena – 99 Red Balloons (1983)
  • Spandau Ballet – To Cut A Long Story Short (1981) & Gold (1983)
  • The Cure – The Love Cats (1983)
  • Deniece Williams – Let’s Hear It For The Boy (1984)
  • The Specials – Nelson Mandela (1984)
  • Madonna – Material Girl (1984)
  • Harold Faltermeyer – Axel F (1984)
  • Philip Bailey with Phil Collins – Easy Lover (1984)
  • Rockwell – Somebody’s Watching Me (1984)
  • Nik Kershaw – I Won’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me (1984)
  • Chaka Khan – I Feel For You (1984)
  • Murray Head – One Night In Bangkok (1984)
  • Ashford & Simpson – Solid As A Rock (1984)
  • Giorgio Moroder & Philip Oakey – Together in Electric Dreams (1984)
  • Russ Abbot – Atmosphere (1984)
  • Falco – Rock Me Amadeus (1985)
  • Cyndi Lauper – Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough (1985)
  • DeBarge – Rhythm Of The Night (1985)
  • Five Star – System Addict (1985)
  • Diana Ross – Chain Reaction (1985)
  • Peter Gabriel – Sledgehammer (1986)
  • Suzanne Vega – Left of Center (1986)
  • Farley ‘Jackmaster’ Funk – Love Can’t Turn Around (1986)
  • Steve Winwood – Higher Love (1986)
  • Jermaine Stewart – We Don’t have To Take Our Clothes Off (1986)
  • Psychedelic Furs – Pretty In Pink (1986 – re-release)

and so many more….

five-star-system-addict

 

Play For Today – Current Playlist, 12th January 2017

 

Currently working on several more substantial articles, but in the meantime, here’s what I’ve been listening to in the last little while; which quite a lot of actually new music, as it turns out…

julia kent

  1. Julia Kent Asperities (The Leaf Label, 2015) – a beautiful album of experimental cello music I like so much that I was moved to actual pay money for the vinyl version.
  2. BathshebaServus (Svart Records, 2017) – the forthcoming album from Bathsheba impressed me a lot; ‘atmospheric occult doom’ is something I’m actually a bit weary of, but the songs are great and singer Michelle Nocon has a Patti Smith-like authority that makes it all very compelling.
  3. Code – Lost Signal (Agonia Records, 2017) – I thought this EP of re-recordings (plus one new song) would be a waste of time, but no; really good in fact.
  4. Nick Mazzarella Trio – Ultraviolet (International Anthem, 2015) – the apparent contradiction of free, expressive jazz welded into tightly controlled compositions turns out to be a recipe for vibrant, gripping music.
  5. Ashen Spire – Speak Not Of The Laudanum Quandary (code666, 2017) – I have to admit the thought of melodramatic, A Forest of Stars-like artifice welded to doomy and atmospheric extreme metal is not something that always fills me with joy – but Ashenspire are more peculiar and less pantomimic in their theatricality than I expected, and the title song is one of several hugely effective compositions here. An acquired taste, as I assume it’s supposed to be, but one worth acquiring.
  6. Bruno Sanfilippo – Piano Textures 4 (2016) – beautifully evocative, modern minimalist piano pieces cover
  7. David Bowie – Hunky Dory (RCA, 1971) – This was my favourite Bowie album (actually, my favourite album) for years, but I hadn’t listened to it for ages. Being impressionable, the fact that a bunch of music critics voted it his greatest work sent me back to it again. I don’t agree, but I see why they think so; Bowie at his most accessible and (relatively) least artificial.
  8. Julie’s Haircut – Invocation And Ritual Dance Of My Demon Twin (Rocket Recordings, 2017) – hypnotic, psychedelic-occult-krautrock that is mesmerising without being boring.
  9. Cryfemal – D6s6nti6rro (Osmose Productions, 2016) Even though I wrote about how much I like Cryfemal here aeons ago,  I actually didn’t notice when they/he (Cryfemal is still just ‘Ebola’) released this album. It’s great – in theory nothing-special, bog-standard black metal, in reality that, only made fantastic by Ebola’s way with a tune.
  10. Nicole Sabouné – Miman (Century Media, 2017) – not 100% made my mind up about this, but when in the mood for langorous, Dead Can Dance-influenced baroque gothic pop, it’s definitely pretty effective.
  11. Uriah Heep – Sonic Origami (Eagle Records, 1998) – what could be less promising than an album by 70s rock dinosaurs, struggling to find their place in the post-grunge landscape of the 90s? And yet the mighty Heep rose to whatever occasion there was with warmth, grace and some understated rock tunes that still sound very nice indeed.
  12. Juliana Hatfield – Hey Babe (Mammoth, 1992) – still in the 90s, this alternative rock gem is a bit overlooked these days, but it still sounds great to me.julianahatfieldtop4
  13. The Veldt – In A Quiet Room (Leonard Skully Records, 2017) – my dubiousness about the current shoegaze revival almost made me overlook this great band, but I’m glad I listened;on paper their music is such a peculiar mix (experimental shoegaze + soul etc) but in fact it just sounds natural and right.
  14. Tom Waits – The Heart of Saturday Night (Asylum, 1974) – to me, this is the album where he first found his true voice and, if not quite as great as Nighthawks at the Diner, it’s still a collection of great songs.
  15. Claire Waldoff – Die Berliner Pflanze (Berliner Musikinder, 2001) – I’ve been fascinated by the art and culture of the Weimar Republic for years* (just as well; seems like that’s the kind of period we’re living in now) and Claire Waldoff’s music from that period (early 30s mostly) is incredibly evocative and moving, and a bit silly. Plus, I love her voice and I am one of the few people I have come across who thinks German is a beautiful-sounding language, so that’s a bonus.
  16. Tenebrae In Perpetuum – La Genesi: 2001-2002 (Ordo MCM, 2017) – I’m a sucker for Italian black metal (the most underrated black metal scene in the world, mostly) and this reissue of the early works of Tenebrae In Perpetuum captures the band at their most atmospheric and unhinged.
  17. Kathy McCarty – Dead Dog’s Eyeball Songs of Daniel Johnston (Bar/None Records, 1994) – Kathy McCarty did a lot to make Daniel Johnston’s songs palatable to people who don’t like the lo-fi home-recordedness of his early work (or his voice, for that matter) and this is still a great album in its own right.
  18. Queen – The Miracle (Capitol, 1989) – an oddity for me, I really don’t like Queen much after Hot Space but I bought this for 50p in a charity shop and so have listened to it a few times. It’s not great, but I like the title song and a few other bits & pieces; Freddie’s voice is always nice to hear.qveen

and that will do for now!

  • re. The Weimar Republic & its culture, there’s a great article about the photographer Marianne Breslauer here