ihsahn - TL:DR (That's Long, DID Read)

the semi-obligatory album of the year type thing (2022 edition)

It’s been a few years since I did an ‘album of the year’ post here, because in general I have to write them for other places and get a bit bored with the process, but this year I thought I’d do something a little different.

But first: albums of the year 2022

My album of the year, by a big margin was Diamanda Galás’s extraordinary Broken Gargoyles. I’ve written about it at length here and here, and had the privilege of discussing it with Diamanda herself here, so won’t say too much about it, except for one observation. People usually use the phrase ‘life-affirming’ to describe records that are joyous, uplifting or leave you with feelings of positivity and contentment. All good things, but Broken Gargoyles is not that album. Instead, it’s life-affirming in the sense that it heightens the sense of being alive and even interrogates the idea of what it really means and how it feels, to be human. It’s thrilling and sometimes beautiful, but also harrowing; and how many musicians even attempt anything like that?

My other favourites this year included Shiki by the Japanese avant-garde black metal band Sigh. It follows in the eclectic footsteps of their past few albums but whereas they blended bits of black metal, prog rock, jazz and so on with sometimes great, sometimes patchy results, Shiki blends them in a far more cohesive and successful way where every song is everything and not this genre-with-a-bit-of-that.

I also loved Beth Orton’s Weather Alive, which I wrote about here, and a very late entry in the AOTY stakes (I literally heard it this week for the first time) is Hjartastjaki by Isafjørd. One genre I have very rarely liked or understood the appeal of is post-rock, but this – a collaboration between Addi of Sólstafir (who I do like – they played one of the best sets I’ve ever seen by anyone at Eistnaflug Festival in 2011) and Ragnar Zolberg – gripped me from the first listen and I currently can’t get enough of it. Even though it’s not at all like it in any way, something about it – maybe just the epically mournful atmosphere – reminds me of Disintegration by The Cure, which is never a bad thing.

So much for 2022. But how much importance should one place on the album of any given year? Albums, like movies, books or any other form of entertainment stay with you if they are any good, and your feelings about them change over time. And some of my favourite albums of all time were released before I was even born, so their context presumably doesn’t necessarily contribute to their impact, on a personal level at least. I’ve been writing for myself since I first started my old blog in 2012 so for a kind of half-assed ten-year anniversary I thought I’d revisit my older albums of the year and see which ones had staying power for me. I’ll limit it to a few from each year so it doesn’t get out of hand.

Strangely I didn’t do one for my own site in 2012 and I don’t have the list I did for Zero Tolerance magazine that year to hand so let’s go from 2013 to 2019, since 2020 is only two years ago and ‘the test of time’ hasn’t completely been passed or failed yet…

2013

My favourite album of that year was Ihsahn’s Das Seelenbrechen, and it’s still one of my favourite albums. I rarely listen to it all the way through at the moment, but various tracks, such as Pulse, Regen and NaCL are still in regular rotation

Others:
David Bowie – The Next Day: I loved this at the time and it felt like a return to form of some sort, but now, though there are some great tracks, it feels a middling Bowie record
Ancient VVisdom: Deathlike – good kind of pastoral black doom/blues (!?) album but haven’t listened to it probably for years at this point
October Falls – The Plague of a Coming Age – very nice, interchangeable with any other October Falls record. They are all nice, I don’t listen to them very often
Sangre de Muerdago – Deixademe Morrer No Bosque: I still play bits of this dark Galician folk album from time to time. It’s great but I’ve never got around to listening to any of their other stuff
Manierisme – フローリア I LOVED Manierisme, and the atmosphere and noise of it still really isn’t like much else. But it’s so harsh in its peculiar way that I rarely listen to it now
Beastmilk – Climax: worth mentioning this because Finnish post-punks Beastmilk (who changed their name to Grave Pleasures and lost their appeal for me pretty quickly) were a much-hyped band that year. It still sounds like a pretty good gothy post-punk type of record, but I had to check it out to remind myself of that

2014

My favourite album of 2014 was Mondegreen by the avant-garde string quartet Collectress and I still love it and listen to bits of it quite often
Most of 2014’s list are just names to me now, though I’m sure they are pretty good: I quite liked Scott Walker & Sun O)))’s Soused but have never revisited it. I thought Mirel Wagner’s When the Cellar Children See the Light of Day was great but don’t really remember it – must check it out again. Nebelung’s Palingenesis has some really nice songs on it that I listen to occasionally.

2015

My album of 2015 was Life is a Struggle, Give Up by Oblivionized. Putting it on again for the first time in ages, it’s still an invigorating, unique semi-grindcore album. Also kind of harsh and draining, so not a frequent listen, but an album worthy of rediscovery nonetheless.

Much easier to listen to but at the time outside of my top ten is the great Hustler’s Row by

surprise sleeper – Hustler’s Row by Gentlemens Pistols

Gentlemens Pistols. I would not have predicted that this would be one of the records that I’d keep returning to but it is: people who love 70s hard rock of the Deep Purple/Rainbow type who haven’t checked it out are missing a treat.

Otherwise, loved Jarboe and Helen Money’s self-titled album, but it’s not very strong in my memory now. The Zombi Anthology by Zombi still sounds great but I rarely listen to it. Ratatat’s Magnifique still gets an outing every now and then, but SUN by Secrets of the Moon and Syner by Grift, both of which I really loved and still think are great, seem kind of hard going to me now.
I went through a phase of really loving Venusian Death Cell (and still do, but don’t listen much) and Honey Girl, “released” that year may be my favourite of his albums. Tribulation’s Children of the Night is fun too, in a very different and probably more accessible way

2016

I wouldn’t necessarily say I was aware of it at the time, but 2016 was a great year for music. My album of the year was Wyatt at the Coyote Palace by Kristin Hersh (which I enthused about here) and it became, as I thought it might, one of those albums I can still listen to at any time, pretty much: it’s great.
Otherwise, Zeal & Ardor’s Devil is Fine still sounds great (and is still my favourite Z&A release). I liked Komada by Alcest but now think it’s pretty dull. I was excited by some EPs by Naia Izumi too, but haven’t really checked out their work since then. I am, outrageously, still the ONLY person I know who likes Extended Play by Debz, and it’s still a unique little record and I love it.
I still think Das Ram by Rachel Mason – my other contender for AOTY that year – is great, but as with a few other things, it slipped off of my listening list at some point and I had to remind myself of it

surprise sleeper – Kaada/Patton’s Bacteria Cult

Kaada/Patton’s Bacteria Cult (Ipecac Recordings) is the Hustler’s Row of 2016, only in the sense that it entered my forever playlist without me expecting it to. I’m not sure a week has gone by since then that I haven’t listened to a song or two from this masterpiece

Honorable mentions

David Bowie – Blackstar
Leonard Cohen – You Want It Darker
Iggy Pop – Post Pop Depression
Jozef van Wissem – When Shall This Bright Day Begin
Japanese Breakfast – Psychopomp
Schammasch – Triangle
De La Soul – …and the Anonymous Nobody…
Kate Carr – I Had Myself a Nuclear Spring
Jeff Parker – The New Breed

2017

2017 had fewer standouts for me but my album of the year, the self-titled debut by Finnish alt-rock band Ghost World, which I wrote enthusiastically about here, still sounds fantastic. That said, though I was less enthused by the 2018 follow up, Spin at the time, that album is the one I listen to more now. But the best songs from Ghost World are still energised grunge-pop classics.

Otherwise, I liked Quinta – The Quick Of The Heart and a few of its songs are still played quite regularly.
I gave Invocation And Ritual Dance Of My Demon Twin by Julie’s Haircut a great review at the time but don’t remember it now, whereas I didn’t think Tarrantulla by Islaja would have much staying power, but bits of it still pop into my head and therefore onto my stereo every now and then.

2018

I was hugely surprised in 2018 to find that my album of the year was an electronic one, Swim, by Phantoms vs Fire, a cinematic masterpiece full of woozy retro-futuristic sounds and melancholy atmospheres. Even more unexpectedly, it’s gone on to be one of my favourite albums of all time and something that I regularly listen to. All of the other Phantoms vs Fire stuff is fine, but for me at least, this is the one.

I was much taken with As Árvores Estão Secas e Não Têm Folhas by the Portuguese dark folk band Urze de Lume at the time but though I could still happily listen to it, I haven’t for a while.
By contrast, songs from all of these have unexpectedly been in regular rotation over the past few years: Ghost World – Spin
Just Like This – Faceless
Orion’s Belte – Mint
Oh, and Burn My Letters by William Carlos Whitten has been revisited far more than I expected and I expect his “Poor Thing” will remain in rotation for the foreseeable future

2019

In 2019, I loved another Collectress album, Different Geographies but it didn’t replace or match Mondegreen in my affections. I can’t seem to find my album of the year strangely, but it might well have been Youth in Ribbons by Revenant Marquis, still my favourite of that prolific artist’s releases.
I also loved but rarely if ever listen to Cryfemal’s Eterna oscuridad, Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou’s May Our Chambers… and Ulver’s Flowers of Evil, but the sleeper of the year was Henrik Palm’s Poverty Metal which I liked fine, but didn’t expect to still be listening to as regularly as I am.

surprise sleeper – Henrik Palm’s Poverty Metal

On the whole it seems to have been a year of songs rather than albums for me – I like the title track of Viviankrist’s Morgenrøde probably as much as anything from that year and bits of Cellista’s Transfigurations still sound great. But lots of the most-praised stuff of the year, albums by Alcest, Cult of Luna and so forth just don’t register with me now: still, can’t like everything.

New Year, New Decade, New…

it’s the Year of the Rat – here’s a mystifying detail from Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights (c.1510) with a friendly looking rodent

A new decade, and the year is flying past already. I intended to write something full of enthusiasm and positivity at the beginning of January, but at that point I was still clumping about in a walking boot and using crutches so it had to wait. I didn’t do my usual ‘records of the year’ for last year either (well I did, but not for this website), and the moment for that has definitely passed. For what it’s worth, my favourite album of the decade 2010-2019 was quite possibly Das Seelenbrechen by Ihsahn. But anyway, it’s Lunar New Year and I’m back in normal shoes, so Happy New Year!

I didn’t make any resolutions as such this year, my general aims though are to read more, write more and resist any of the normalisation of right wing extremism that seems to be carrying seamlessly over from last year. This week the BBC has a show where Ed Balls hangs around with various actual and quasi Nazis (maybe in the name of balance they should send Michael Portillo to hang around with some communists? On a train, if that’s what it takes*), while Channel 4 seems to think what Britain needs is more TV shows about Nigel Farage, presumably trying to get the most out of him while he still has any kind of relevance as a public figure.

* at this point, Around The World With Alan Partridge In A Bullnose On The Left barely feels like parody

So anyway, I am as always working on long, convoluted articles on various topics that aren’t yet finished, so this will be more in the nature of some brief notes and so forth.

In the holidays I re-read (the first time since childhood) the first three books in Joan Aiken’s Wolves Chronicles, set in an alternative early 19th century Britain where the Stuart monarchy was never deposed and “Jamie III”, sits on the throne. As the series starts, the country has been overrun by hungry wolves fleeing the Russian winter that have arrived through the recently completed channel tunnel (younger readers may need to be reminded that it was in reality completed in 1994). I mention the books (which are much as I remember them; entertaining, well-written and a bit silly) mainly for this passage near the beginning of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, which, like the young heroine, I have remembered all my life (so far) – although I didn’t know where it was from and vaguely thought it must be Leon Garfield or even CS Lewis. The book is also, it turns out, the place I remember possets (Victorian hot curdled drinks) from. I’ve still never had one – they sound revolting – but reading about them made them seem desirable again.

There was something magical about this ride which Sylvia was to remember for the rest of her life – the dark, snow-scented air blowing constantly past them, the boundless wold and forest stretching away in all directions before and behind, the tramp and jingle of the horses, the snugness and security of the carriage, and above all Bonnie’s happy welcoming presence beside her
Joan Aiken, The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, 962, p.44-5

In the sadly non-alternative present, Britain has a ridiculous prime minister every bit as pantomime-villain-like as Aiken’s villains are (she goes in for the kind of Dickensian villain names that seem to preclude the character from being good: “Miss Slighcarp” being the classic example) and the government is issuing with a typical and, presumably deliberate sense of bitter irony, this coin to commemorate the victory of insularity, xenophobia and – most importantly – protecting the financial interests of a small coterie of people at the centre of power:

In non-alternative Britain, somehow accusations of child abuse do not constitute a ‘royal crisis’ while two of its members making vague gestures towards some kind of unobjectionable normal life does; and maybe this is right. The idea at the heart of monarchy and aristocracy (that is, aristokratia; ‘rule of the best’) is by definition about not being ‘normal’ so perhaps, as we get further and further from the days when the monarchy involved some kind of mystical aspect and what Monty Python (RIP Terry Jones) called ‘supreme executive power’ we should expect all kinds of by-normal-standards transgressions to appear and not be seriously acknowledged by the royals and their fans, while (admittedly approximate) attempts at living ordinary lives will be punished.

I have no intention of going into serious political discussions here because I don’t want to, but 2020 has seen a minor shift in my own political views, insofar as, although I still regard (and I guess always will) nationalism of any kind as regressive and illogical, if there was to be another independence referendum in Scotland tomorrow, I would vote in favour of independence. Not without regret, as I fundamentally believe in internationalism and the principles mocked on the Brexit coin; but at some point, if the government that people vote for is not the one they get – and despite the apparent landslide won by Johnson and co, their support in Scotland is minimal – then something is fundamentally wrong with the system. That said, I’d be wary of writing off the Tories’ 25% of Scotland’s vote as insignificant; 690,000 people is a lot, even in a country of over 5 million. Overall in fact, the Scottish election results echo those of Britain as a whole, with the most noticeable feature being the collapse of anything resembling a left wing movement, depressingly. But anyway; in the unlikely event that a referendum is given by the current parliament, I hope the lessons of Brexit will be learned and that an independence campaign can well-informed and practical, but also optimistic and aspirational, rather than overwhelmingly negative and defined by the things people don’t want/like/believe in. Too much to ask, perhaps.

Onto more positive things; my friend Paul, who introduced me to the Nouveau Roman, has written a nice introduction to the movement here, which means I have more things I need to read; luckily, I have rejoined a library for the first time in over a decade. And the experimental string group Collectress have finally followed up my favourite album of 2014 (Mondegreen) with Different Geographies, out on 6 March via Peeler Records. It’s a beautiful, mysterious, allusive and elusive record; I’ve not really absorbed it yet, but here’s a nice video –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Nf0P8HHsAQ&feature=youtu.be

So, to sum up; it’s all a bit of a mess, but it’s a new year and a new decade, so one might as well be positive and try to do good things. Will write more soon.

Play For Today – Current Playlist 3rd January 2017

A new year, a (slightly) new look, yet another playlist! This time, things I am listening to as the year begins, including (naturally) some things that I got for Christmas…

Patti Smith – Radio Ethiopia (Arista, 1976)

2. IC Rex – Tulen jumalat (Saturnal, 2017)

3. Aidan Baker w. Claire Brentnall – Delirious Things (Gizeh Records, 2017)

4. Kristin Hersh – The Grotto (4AD, 2003)

5. Jeff Parker – The New Breed (International Anthem, 2016)

6. Scott Walker – Pola X (soundtrack, Barclay Records, 1999)

7. Wardruna – Runaljod; gap var Ginnunga (Indie Recordings, 2009)

8. Hardingrock – Grimen (Candlelight Records, 2007)

9. Endalok – Úr Draumheimi Viðurstyggðar Signal Rex, 2017)

10. A Tree Grows – Wau Wau Water (Rufftone Records, 2016)

11. Kristin Hersh – Crooked (Throwing Music, 2010)

12. The Beach Boys – Holland (Brother/Reprise, 1973)

13. Ela Orleans – Circles of Upper and Lower Hell (Night School Records, 2016)

14. Julie’s Haircut – Invocation And Ritual Dance Of My Demon Twin (Rocket Recordings, 2017)

15. Yurei – Night Vision (Adversum, 2012)

16. Jesca Hoop – Memories Are Now (Sub-Pop, 2017)

17. Christine Ott, Tabu (Gizeh Records, 2016)

18. The Veldt – In A Quiet Room (Leonard Skully Records, 2017)

19. Kiss – Dynasty (Casablanca, 1979)

20. Heikki Sarmanto Serious Music Ensemble – The Helsinki Tapes Vol 2 (Svart Records, 2016)

Inevitably, the releases of the year, 2016 (Part Three)

Some more highlights…

Lauren Redhead – Ijereja (Pan Y Rosas Discos)

Probably the least conventional release of the year on my list, I wrote about Lauren Redhead’s ambient/noise/found sound opera for Echoes and Dust, so will keep this short. An intriguing mix of music and non-music, it’s a minimalist but strangely satisfying work that repays close listening.

Suzanne Vega – Lover, Beloved: Songs from an Evening with Carson McCullers (Amanuensis Productions)

Taken from her stage show, this easily stands as an album; both soothing and thought-provoking, it’s a collection of clever, affecting and slightly jazzy songs arguably as good as any she has released.

Emma Ruth Rundle – Marked For Death (Sargent House)

Quite rightly appearing in many album of the year lists, Emma Ruth Rundle’s second album is a collection of dark and atmospheric ballads that is more affecting and more accessible than Some Heavy Ocean, but loses none of that record’s deep emotional impact.

Some metallic Releases of the Year

I’ve already mentioned some of the metal highlights of the year (Alcest, ThrOes, SubRosa) but it was a pretty good year for metal overall, so here are a few more great things:

Schammasch – Triangle (Prosthetic Records)

Unusual black metal, shrouded in mystery and atmosphere. A really good album that doesn’t sound much like anything else; quite an accomplishment given the genre.

Ihsahn – Arktis. (Candlelight Records)

Far more conventional than Das Seelenbrechen (with the Hardingrock album Grimen, still my favourite Ihsahn release) but much more fun too – an inventive, exciting album that is both modern and classic.

Hobbs’ Angel of Death – Heaven Bled (Hell’s Headbangers)

A classic thrash comeback from one of the great overlooked bands of the 80s. Only nostalgia makes their self-titled debut the better album.

Bethlehem – Bethlehem (Prophecy Productions)

After years of experimental, conceptual work, Bethlehem returned with perhaps their best and certainly their most straightforward album to date, aided hugely by new vocalist Onielar. A dark metal masterpiece.

Mithras – On Strange Loops (Willowtip Records)

Mithras mark the end of an era with their strongest album to date; progressive, forward-looking death metal that is as powerful as it is inventive.

Madder Mortem – Red In Tooth And Claw (Dark Essence Records)

An excellent comeback from Norway’s Madder Mortem; catchy, unorthodox songs and great performances, especially from singer Agnete M. Kirkvaage.

Also…

Drudkh/Hades Almighty – The One Who Talks With The Fog/Pyre Era, Black! (Season of Mist) – The best of Drudkh’s recent split releases, not least because Hades Almighty are on equally formidable form.

Forteresse – Thèmes Pour la Rébellion (Sepulchral Productions) – I’ve written about my love of Métal Noir Québécois at length here qnd, even though I prefer Forteresse’s earlier, more atmospheric work, this album is a vital, furious addition to their work

Opeth – Sorceress (Nuclear Blast) – Perhaps the best non-death metal album Opeth have released

Inquisition – Bloodshed Across the Empyrean Altar Beyond the Celestial Zenith (Season of Mist) – Inquisition are perhaps beginning to tread water with their seventh album, but they are working at such a high standard that this is still essential for black metal fans

Sad Farewells of the Year

Celebrity deaths have been especially noticeable this year, but both David Bowie and Leonard Cohen managed to say goodbye with albums that are excellent even by their very high standards. These albums acknowledge their finality in a way that rarely happens in popular music (or any art, really). So moving (if you’re a fan) that they are hard to evaluate.

David Bowie – Blackstar (ISO/RCA)

A difficult listen, it’s a measure of Blackstar‘s quality that it is still revealing its secrets months after its release and it remains difficult to evaluate just where it belongs qualitatively in Bowie’s vast and rich catalogue. Philosophical and in some ways opaque, it shows an artist at the end of his life looking inwards and outwards but rarely backwards; a brave, forbidding but ultimately enriching album that sounds like nothing else on earth (or anywhere else).

Leonard Cohen – You Want It Darker (Columbia)

In many ways not that unusual for a Leonard Cohen album, You Want It Darker is witty, wise and deeply sad. Not as painful to listen to as Blackstar, but just as emotionally involving.

Final part to follow, including my release of the year!

Not the Releases of the Year 2016

‘Album of the year’ lists are fine for representing a specific time period in music, and interesting because of how personal and subjective they are – an element which becomes eroded by time, as is easily seen from the consensus found in the majority of ‘great albums of the 60s/70s/80s’/etc lists and the fact that ‘new’ classics from those eras can be discovered decades later.

Anyway; all of this is to ask what importance a ‘releases of the year 2016’ list can really have for someone (i.e. me) who was listening to Claire Waldoff on his way home from work. One way to find out is to look back over the last few years to see how many of my own previous releases of the year have stood the test of (a relatively short amount of) time to become actual favourites. So let’s do that.

My records (pun shockingly not intended) of such things only go back a few years and I am sticking to things that actually made it onto my lists and not the many things I have subsequently discovered from those years (2012-2015 I think), but blah blah blah; disclaimers aside, here’s what the stalwarts of the last few years (and 60 or so albums) look like, plus notes related thereto:

STILL CURRENT LISTENING

Ihsahn – Das Seelenbrechen (Candlelight Records)

What I said then:

Metal acts are all too often praised for bringing any kind of non-metal musical influence into their work (tentative, seriously out of date bits of techno or hip-hop are probably the least daring way to ‘innovate’); but with Das Seelenbrechen, Ihsahn made an album that wasn’t just ‘extreme metal with (whatever) elements’. The electronic, gentle and improvised parts of the album are no less natural than the heavy riffs, raw vocals and Nietzschean philosophy. Clever, extreme (in lots of different ways) but accessible, because at its heart are great songs which don’t necessarily belong to any particular genre.

What I say now: I think Das Seelenbrechen has gone on to become Ihsahn’s least popular solo album, but I stand by what I said and, for me this, together with the 2007 Hardingrock album, is the artist at his creative peak (so far). This year’s Arktis. is a great record, and arguably much more fun than Das Seelenbrechen, but also far more conventional. Not a bad thing, but Das Seelenbrechen sounded at times like Scott Walker and a group of jazz musicians playing metal/metal musicians playing jazz, Arktis. sounds like someone who loves 80s metal and rock interpreting it in their own style.

Collectress – Mondegreen (Peeler Records)

What I said then:

Experimental string quartet Collectress make music that has many moods but is always interesting. On Mondegreen, the sound ranges from the bustling, Steve Reich-ish ‘Spell‘ to the haunting, tense ‘Harmonium‘ to the wistful, minimalistic and strangely nostalgic-sounding ‘Owl‘. It’s a beautiful album, each song creating its own pervasive mood but somehow becoming an entirely coherent whole; and it sounds absolutely nothing like anything else I heard this year.

What I say now: I still feel the same about the album, but what strikes me most now is the way each piece of music conjures up its own visual world; it has a strange, benign doll’s house feel to it, theatrical and haunted without being spooky.

David Bowie – The Next Day (ISO/Columbia)

What I said then:

A great album (if not a ‘return to form’ exactly, since his form has been pretty dubious for a long, long time), with a few lesser moments (the 90’s-ish indie-ish attempts at being modern grate a bit) which don’t however spoil the whole.

What I say now – This is an odd one, in that the album disappeared from regular rotation for a good year or so, only to be rediscovered with so many other Bowie albums, after his death. Still, I don’t think it’s one of his best overall (certainly less good than Blackstar), but the best songs are ‘classic Bowie’

Sangre de Muerdago – Deixademe Morrer No Bosque (self-release)

What I said then:

Moody, windswept and mysterious Galician folk music; beautiful, desolate and organic.

What I say now – One of the ‘lesser’ albums of the year at the time, but it has outlasted many records that I preferred back then. The slightly hushed quality and campfire sound effects etc give it a unique charm; I keep meaning to check out more of their work (and have listened to bits and pieces) but I kind of like having this one perfect album.

John Baizley, Nate Hall & Mike Scheidt – Songs of Townes Van Zandt Vol II (My Proud Mountain)

What I said then:

Powerful versions of Townes Van Zandt’s earthy folk/blues songs, all the better for the starkness of the recordings.

What I say now – another one that was a bit of a sleeper; I liked it, listened to it a lot, and moved on. But at some point it suddenly felt very relevant and I feel like I know/feel the songs much better now.

Nebelung – Palingenesis (Temple of Torturous records)

What I said then:

This instrumental ‘dark folk’ album is probably one of my most listened-to albums of the year; beautifully atmospheric music that seems imbued with the essence of autumn.

What I say now – not much to add to that, really. This year the band released a re-recording of their checked out the recent re-recording of their 2005 debut, Mistelteinn and it’s really good, but I prefer the purely instrumental album.

Sonny Simmons & Moksha Samnyasin – Nomadic (Svart Records)

What I said then:

There’s a very Miles Davis-y feel to this album, despite the psychedelic and drone elements. The blend of Simmons’ sax with Moksha Samnyasin (Michel Kristoff’; sitar, Thomas Bellier; bass, Sébastien Bismuth (drums, electronics) is what great free jazz is about; not aimless noodling, but intuitive, almost telepathic interplay and the exotic atmospheres and intense moods that result.

What I say now – Nomadic ended up being one of those albums where what were initially my least favourite tracks have ended up being my favourite ones. Its richness keeps it alive.

Secrets of the Moon – SUN (Lupus Lounge)

What I said then:

There’s not a lot of emotionally complex black metal music out there; a shame, because the expressive possibilities of the form are arguably greater and more powerful than any other metal genre. Also a shame, because, as with any genre of music, the best black metal transcends its idiom and is simply great music; and such is SUN, the sixth album by the always-dependable Secrets of the Moon. ‘Dependable’ is rarely used as a huge compliment for a band, but although the last few Secrets.. albums have been powerful and mature, none of them really suggested an album as immense as SUN. Inspired to a large extent by the suicide of ex-bass player LSK, it’s a work full of strange, desolate yet apparently hopeful imagery. Mysterious, elusive, it’s an album whose emotional punch is as unexpected as it is tangible.

What I say now – SUN was consistently an album whose songs popped up on shuffle and amazed me with their greatness. Although a black metal album of sorts, it doesn’t really follow any of the genre’s conventions; what I said above, in fact.

——————————————————————————————————————————————–

ALSO-RANS & ODDITIES

Ancient VVisdom – Deathlike

I loved this at the time, but even then I preferred their debut A Godlike Inferno – and now I find I still listen to that, but rarely Deathlike…

Boards of Canada – Tomorrow’s Harvest

The downside to BoC’s more ambient approach with this album is that it is great while it’s on, but I rarely think about it between times

Manierisme – フローリア

I have failed to convince people of Manierisme’s genius more than almost any other band. And I still think Jekyll is a genius, but the balance of horribleness to sepia-toned nostalgia isn’t as successful here as on his earlier work.

Eleni & Souzana Vougioukli – To Be Safe

I’d absolutely still recommend this brilliant and beautiful album to anyone, but it ended up having less longevity for me than I expected

Beastmilk – Climax

See above; a very good album, but retro gothy rock felt surprisingly fresh when Beastmilk (now Grave Pleasures) released their debut; now it doesn’t

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Push The Sky Away

Possibly I am just spoiled for choice with Nick Cave, but at the time I thought this would take its place with Tender Prey, The Good Son, Henry’s Dream etc, but I listen to those regularly, this only every now & then

Absentia Lunae – Vorwarts (ATMF)

It’s not that I don’t like this fine black metal album, it’s just that I want all of their work to grip me in the same way that their mighty In Vmbrarvm Imperii Gloria does. And it doesn’t, quite.

Mirel Wagner – When the Cellar Children See the Light of Day (Sub Pop)

I remember this being great, and I think it is – but I haven’t really gone back to it since the initial excitement wore off.

Scott Walker & Sunn O))) – Soused (4AD)

My initial (but positive) impression that this is somehow just slightly less good than either Scott Walker or Sunn O)))’s usual records has grown – it’s not as good.

YOB – Clearing the Path to Ascend (Neurot Recordings)

Don’t get me wrong; this is one hundred percent a fantastic album, it’s just that its main legacy for me has been to send me back to Mike Scheidt’s criminally underrated 2012 solo album Stay Awake

Jarboe and Helen Money – Jarboe and Helen Money (Aurora Borealis Recordings)

Pretty simple – great record, but I wore it out by listening to it too much. It may come back though.

Odessey & Oracle – Odessey and Oracle and the Casiotone Orchestra (Folkwit Records)

Same – brilliant album, but extremely strongly flavoured in a way that makes it not for all moods…

Valet – Nature (Kranky Records)

A good album that I barely remember; will have to check it out again at some point, though.

Right; time to get on with the albums of the year….

The Second Monthly Report: February 2016

A short month, but full of things, not least my own birthday! So plenty of stuff to discuss…

Unfortunately, David Bowie is still dead and in fact has been more productive than ever as a commercial entity, as music, magazines, TV shows, pop stars and books pay tribute to the great man.

One of the more unusual books to appear in the wake (sorry) of Bowie’s death is the (big even for a coffee table) book: produced by the personalised gifting website ijustloveit.co.uk:

David Bowie: A Newspaper History

Published in a large (indeed, tabloid newspaper) format, but with an embossed leather cover, David Bowie: A Newspaper History is an extremely fascinating but mostly not at all heartwarming memento of a career of dazzling highs and normal human lows as seen through the distorting lens of The Daily Mirror; revealed here – in case you didn’t suspect it – as a sensationalist tabloid that never really understood anything about the man except for his fame and newsworthiness. Although there is some introductory scene-setting concerning the outrageously long-haired Bowie of 1965 (with a great full-page photo) and a brief snippet about his Man Who Sold The World man-dress, the book really takes off, as one would expect, in 1972, when Bowie became a household name after the Ziggy-era singles began to chart, to the bemusement of the older generation and, one assumes, the readers of the Daily Mirror.

For the next few years, the Mirror veers between the predictable extremes of fashion icon idolatry and ‘has-he-gone-too-far?’ tabloid outrage. So we see David and Angie, the toast of the fashion world, David and Lulu, the ‘odd couple’, ‘Bowie Goes Straight!’ as glam rock dies, depressingly muck-raking coverage of David and Angie’s separation (“ZOWIE: boy in the middle”), rumours about his love life, innuendo about his drug use, continuing surprise at the longevity of his career and good health. What makes the book so fascinating is that the Bowie stories are framed with whatever else was going on at the time; political scandals, murder, adverts for banks, cheap chicken, New Mirror Bingo, all giving a vivid and immediate contemporary context that a biography can only do justice through exposition and anecdote. It also incidentally shows how central Bowie was, and continued to be, to popular culture in the 70s and 80s; film and television, Live Aid, riots in Brixton, new advances in technology and marketing (‘Vote for the songs you want to hear on Bowie’s 1990 tour’); Bowie was there, leading, following, keeping his distance or taking part; it’s no wonder his absence is felt so keenly.

If the tabloid culture of the 70s and 80s was deplorable but kind of fun in its eminent shockability, worse was to come in the 90s. The Mirror may(?) have been a cut above The Sun or News of the World, but its journalism epitomises the tabloid culture where anything private is ‘secret’, non-married partners are invariably ‘lovers’ and the language used is a bizarre mixture of pedestrian illiterate-friendly English, salacious puritanism and puerile baby-talk. From being the ‘bizarre pop phenomenon’ of the 70s and ‘pop chameleon’ of the 80s, Bowie now becomes just ‘rock star David Bowie’ and the Mirror wants to have its cake and eat it; being shocked and condemnatory where there is suspicion of drug use or disharmony between Bowie and ex-bandmates, shocked/amused by anything vaguely unusual that Bowie said/did/wore (We can be hairdoes..), but also devoting ‘heartwarming’ stories to anything that normal famous people do; a full page is devoted to the birth of his daughter (Daddy Stardust) and his recovery from heart surgery (I AM HUNKY DORY).

In amongst all this are a some genuinely interesting pieces; a fairly short and shallow interview with Alun Palmer in 2003 is fascinating because the Mirror wanted to know about things that NME, Mojo etc didn’t; his health, his personal life, his smoking; everything in fact except the actual music he was making.

In more recent times it all becomes a bit reprehensible; Aladdin Retirement (2012) attempts to pry into his private life and quotes nameless ‘friends’ about his desire to avoid the limelight without the slightest sense of irony or self-awareness. Even worse are the frankly vile speculations by ex-music journalists who should know better concerning his flurry of activity in 2013 (DOES A TRAGIC REASON LIE BEHIND THE THIN WHITE DUKE’S RETURN?) which fizzle out as Bowie doesn’t die and the paper loses interest, instead satisfying itself as usual with photos of Bowie caught off-guard, looking normal and, sin of sins, his age.

And then, inevitably, comes Blackstar (Album of the Week no less; actually a very good review) and then the obituaries; the hypocritically respectful overviews of his life and career intercut with whatever snippets and details they could get on the state of his health during the final months of ‘secrecy’ while he fought cancer.

David Bowie: A Newspaper History is a fascinating, absorbing book. Fans, people who have followed Bowie’s career and work will find in it hundreds of photographs they may not have seen before, the kind of stories that don’t make it into serious biographies, but also a peculiar parallel universe where their hero is distorted into somebody that only unbelievers will recognise; David Bowie the ‘superstar’.

Highly recommended; in an odd way it’s a very fitting memorial to a life lived in public, even if it leaves a funny, slightly bitter taste in the end.

Some music that occupied the ears during February:

The reliably interesting Folkwit Records have a few excellent new releases:

Astrophysics Saved My Life is the second album by folk-rock group Rivers of England and it’s a rich, accessible and pleasant album that wears its unorthodox aspects very lightly. The most audible reference point is less folk (let alone ‘folk rock’) and more the jazzy John Martyn of Solid Air, although Rivers of England’s sound is never quite as unearthly as that comparison suggests, not least because singer/songwriter Rob Spalding has a David Gray-like (though not David Gray-sounding) directness in his vocal performances that is very different from John Martyn’s allusive, intuitive delivery. It’s a strong set of songs that seems set for mainstream success; they would be an eminently suitable festival band, so hopefully they should be on some main (or at least big) stages this summer.

Less ‘normal’ and slightly more my cup of tea is Melody Cycle by Jack And The’, the musical project of Edinburgh-based French multi-instrumentalist Julien Lonchamp.

The album presents, in beautiful widescreen clarity, a kind of incidental-TV-music-baroque-jazz-pop that has a breezy charm that veers towards twee-ness at times, but is so brilliantly orchestrated that its complexity never overwhelms its sunny, life affirming quality. If you imagine The Beach Boys’ immortal ‘Aren’t You Glad‘ being played by a French version of Cornelius’ old band Flipper’s Guitar aided by Roy Wood-era ELO on strings and woodwind and you are not only being weird but possibly getting close to the sound of Jack And The’; better just to listen to Melody Cycle though, that way you’ll know exactly what it sounds like.

Away from Folkwit, I fell in love with sound artist Lisa Busby‘s superb Fingers In The Gloss, lutenist Josef van Wissem‘s beautiful new album When Will The Bright Day Come and the Iggy Pop/Tarwater/Alva Noto Walt Whitman release Leaves of Grass and some great songs by awesome synth-punk/pop duo Sex Cells but as I’ve written about those in depth on the brilliant site Echoes and Dust I shan’t discuss them further here; but check them out though. Also great is the new Hexvessel album, When We Are Death, see the new issue of Zero Tolerance Magazine (issue 071) for more on that, including my interview with frontman Mat McNerney (also of Grave Pleasures, CODE, DHG etc)

In a heavier vein than the Folkwit records, my favourite metal musician Ihsahn is preparing to release his new album Arktis. through Candlelight Records. Where Das Seelenbrechen (my favourite Ihsahn album to date) mixed avant-garde electronica, classic songwriting, Scott Walker-ish experimentation and rock and metal elements, Arktis. feels like a true successor to the first two Ihsahn albums, The Adversary and angL. It’s an unashamedly, exuberantly heavy metal album for the most part, and while it isn’t without experimental elements it feels like Ihsahn is concentrating more on songwriting, the riff and having fun; and it’s great.

Speaking of unashamed heavy metal, an unexpected treat to (belatedly) come my way was the latest albums by Scottish NWOBHM legends Holocaust. Released through Sleaszy Rider Records, Predator is 100% a classic metal album, displaying that the band have lost none of the fire or power that brought them to the world’s attention with The Nightcomers back in 1981. As with fellow NWOBHM survivors Saxon, the band’s approach bears little resemblance to the kind of nostalgic pastiches of 80s metal made by so many modern ’80s style’ bands, instead drawing on the same impulses that made the NWOBHM so vital in the first place; passion, skill, good songwriting and an absolute disregard for the dictates of fashion.

Predator isn’t only a great set of songs, it’s a heavy metal album for the twenty-first century and not just for ageing metal warriors longing for the golden age of their youth. They will like it too though.

Away from current releases, birthday presents allowed me to overdose on the works of RATATAT, specifically their perfect debut album as well as LP3 and LP4. RATATAT are an interesting band to study chronologically, since their work manages to be both hard to label and surprisingly homogenous in itself. LP3 feels like the most experimental of the three (of all their albums in fact), but it’s a slightly deceptive perception, since LP4 was mostly recorded in the same sessions, so it’s mostly a matter of selection. It feels as though the duo are attempting to explore all of the possibilities within a fairly narrow range of sounds/styles and since their latest album Magnifique (2015) is perhaps their best to date, they hopefully still have plenty of exploring to do.

Going back in time, but never sounding more relevant than it does in 2016, Public Enemy‘s immortal It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back was being played probably too loud in my earphones for much of the month. Listening to Chuck D’s incredible delivery on songs like Louder Than A Bomb (to me one of the best rap performances I’ve heard) two things spring to mind; firstly that Chuck D has the perfect balance between power/authority/style and coherently getting his message across, and secondly that, from the perspective of Public Enemy in 1988, the USA in 2016 is probably both better and worse than they could have foreseen.

If all Public Enemy had done was to inform and warn though, they would certainly have been important, but they wouldn’t necessarily have been one of the great musical groups of all time; It Takes A Nation Of Millions… is also a superb album just as sound. Terminator X’s innovative sampling and superlative turntable skills and Flavor Flav’s irrepressible personality bring as much to the album as Chuck D’s more authoritative persona and it’s no surprise that the album was embraced by kids and critics, people of all races and nations; that’s what classic albums do.

Older still, Leonard Cohen‘s Songs From A Room is an album I knew but didn’t own and it seems as good a place as any to start with his work. Strangely, I mainly know the songs from trying to learn to play the guitar with them (I can’t remember why, but the songbook for Songs From A Room and a Songs of George Formby were the only two chord books I had for years; sounds like a charity shop purchase). Maybe it’s because I spent large chunks of late adolescence listening to Joy Division, Cranes, The Smiths etc, but I don’t find Leonard Cohen at all depressing; and really, if as people often claim apologetically, ‘he isn’t really a singer, he’s a poet’, then what is Bob Dylan, or even Lou Reed? Cohen’s voice may not be flamboyant, but it’s inherently musical, and it delivers his emotionally complex lyrics with perfect clarity. The musical sparseness of the album too is a plus, stripped of late 60s ornament, it is timeless and beautiful.

I read some books in February too.

An extremely fun, quick, easy but not simple read was the first volume of Bryan Talbot‘s graphic novel series Grandville. Named in honour of the French caricaturist Grandville* the series consists of old fashioned ‘scientific romance thrillers’ that are part pointed steampunk satire, part Rupert the Bear; a very satisfying mixture as it turns out, and beautifully designed and drawn too. As it happens, Bryan Talbot had already drawn possibly my favourite ever steampunk comic art in his tenure as artist on Nemesis The Warlock in 2000AD comic. His ‘Gothic Empire’ episodes are beautifully atmospheric, some of the finest artwork from one of 2000AD’s golden ages.

*Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard; Freddie Mercury was also a fan, the imagery of his final Queen album Innuendo was influenced by Grandville

Another book with pictures is the brilliant Vivian Maier: Street Photographer edited by John Maloof and published by powerHouse Books. Another beautifully designed book, it collects the amazingly evocative street photos of Vivien Maier, taken from the 1950s onwards but not discovered until after her death in 2009. As a record of the minutiae of everyday life in big cities in days gone by, her photographs would be valuable enough; but they are also the testament to a genuinely remarkable photographic talent, a photographer who knew exactly what would make a good picture and how to capture it, both naturally and strikingly.

As February ends, I’m reading Jon Ronson‘s now famous The Psychopath Test. A superb and funny investigation into the nature of madness of various types, it retrospectively suffers a little from its own success, the ideas and stories having been widely disseminated since publication (Channel 4’s Psychopath Night etc) and on the whole I think I prefer his latest, So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed (recently published in paperback) which should be made mandatory reading for anyone who uses social networking sites or thinks that the world needs to hear their opinion. It’s genuinely one of the best books I’ve read in a long time and manages to say something new and meaningful about the ways the world has changed over the last few years while no-one was paying attention, except to their computers and phones.

Oh; here’s five minutes of your life you’ll never get back:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsBAmwSgX7w

Anyway, onwards: March!

Play for Today: 9th January 2016

Today’s playlist is mainly stuff that has been playing since Christmastime, so it’s probably longer than it will usually be:

Brian Eno – Before and After Science (1977)

Eno’s last collection of somewhat alien-sounding ‘songs’, definitely good, but compared to his first few it’s a bit all over the place, tending to segue into the ambient stuff that was beginning to be his main focus. I do love his voice though.

Ihsahn – Arktis (2016)

Much as I wish I’d seen the Emperor reunion, I have to say that by now Ihsahn’s solo discography is if anything even better. Arktis isn’t as unclassifiably brilliant as Das Seelenbrechen was, but it’s more straightforward and accessible; arguably as good as anything he’s made.

Blind Lemon Jefferson – Texas Blues; The Complete… (1925-1935)

113 songs, most by Jefferson and a few by related artists; taken as a whole I like it less than the similar Charley Patton set, but although his work is less atmospheric, Blind Lemon is less repetitive and just as inventive as a guitar player.

Dorje – Catalyst EP (2015)

Talking of inventive guitar playing, Dorje’s 2015 EP packs as many seismic hard rock riffs and blistering solos as you could reasonably fit into a half hour(ish) running time. Every band member excels here, and more importantly, the songs are up to the standard of the playing.

The Ornette Coleman Trio – At The “Golden Circle”, Stockholm (1965)

The poet Philip Larkin once called Coleman’s music ‘a patternless reiterated jumble’ and that is sort of fair enough (there are no actual tunes to speak of), but doesn’t take into account the beauty of his playing or the telepathy between the three musicians; definitely love it or hate it kind of jazz.

Abbath – Abbath (2016)

Not quite out yet, Abbath’s debut is the perfect album for those missing Immortal. Like his I album Between Two Worlds (2006) it leans more towards traditional metal than black metal, but this time it feels more like a successor to Sons of Northern Darkness rather than a departure from it.

Kristin McClement – The Wild Grips (2015)

A beautifully delicate and haunting album which I’ll have to listen to a bit more before writing anything hugely meaningful about it

Black Sugar – Black Sugar (1971)

Mostly great Peruvian latin-funk-jazz LP, the sort of thing that would be extremely hard to hear without the internet

Inevitably, the releases of the year 2015 (grand finale!)

Kristian Harting – Summer of Crush (Exile on Mainstream)

Danish singer-songwriter Kristian Harting’s 2014 debut album, Float, was an intriguing, atmospheric collection of dark and sometimes harrowing but somehow insubstantial (in the ethereal, rather than qualitative sense) songs. Summer of Crush is both more conventional (the songs are more complete, the tunes more tuneful) and also more accomplished. There’s a cinematic, sweeping, Bad Seeds quality to some of the material here, which heightens the enigmatic quality of the songs, while also rendering them more solid and memorable than his previous work. A masterly album – haunting without being grim -which will hopefully get the exposure it deserves and significantly raise the profile of this unique and talented artist.

Aphex Twin – various releases

Not new as such, but throughout the year, Richard James released over 200 unreleased Aphex Twin tracks through his Soundcloud account and although the sheer quantity of music released makes it hard to evaluate as a whole, much of the material was every bit as beautiful, enigmatic and unique as his more orthodoxly released music.

Haar – The Wayward Ceremony (ATMF)

This excellent debut album by Edinburgh black metallists Haar is inventive, intelligent and utterly free from the many clichés of the genre. Philosophical, perfectly contructed and brilliantly played, this was one of the debuts of the year.

Louise Le May – A Tale Untold (Folkwit Records)

A haunting collection of songs which can be (and is now being) lazily compared to Kate Bush. Beautifully composed and arranged, it’s an immersive, dreamlike record that has a rich and varied texture, but ultimately relies on Le May and her stunning voice for its poignant, evocative impact.

Myrkur – M (Relapse Records)

M effortlessly overcame the hype and anti-hype surrounding its release, instantly establishing Myrkur as a major player on the black metal stage; beautiful folk and classical-influenced melodies, Danish folklore and black metal that sounds like Ulver used to; this was something like a master(mistress?)piece.

WAIT! NEARLY FORGOT!:

Obsequiae – Aria of Vernal Tombs (20 Buck Spin)

If this album hadn’t already been so widely acclaimed it would have feature here in more detail. A brilliantly conceived, played and recorded work, Tanner Anderson is one of the very few musicians in black metal who has both a deep knowledge of medieval music, and no desire to utilise it in a cosplay-ish kind of way.

OLD ALBUM OF THE YEAR: contender# 5

Hardingrock – Grimen (Mnemosyne, 2007)

This collaboration between StarofAsh, Ihsahn and fiddler Knut Buen is a perfect mix of tradition, experimentation, electronica, folk, rock, metal and spoken word elements that sounds like nothing else. I wish they’d do it again.

So, that 2015 top five again…

I tried to put them in some kind of order but couldn’t decide which was the best. I think Jarboe/Helen Money has the edge but it would depend what kind of mood I was in, so here they are in no order again:

1. Jarboe & Helen Money – s/t
2. Secrets of the Moon – SUN
3. Oblivionized – Life Is A Struggle, Give Up
4. Enslaved – In Times
5. Kristian Harting – Summer of Crush

There were of course many, many more excellent releases in 2015;

VERY HONOURABLE MENTIONS:

Le Butcherettes – A Raw Youth (Ipecac Recordings) – great, scuzzy, post-Iggy punk with a hint of Birthday Party-like drama; great stuff.

Godhole – Godhole (Mind Ripper Collective) – this double EP by Edinburgh trio Godhole announced the arrival of a major new talent on the powerviolence/noise scene

Mongol Metal (compilation) (Mongol Metal) – great trio of bands mixing the styles of Mongolian folk music with various shades of metal

Horna – Hengen Tulet (World Terror Committee) – Excellent Horna album, to me not quite as good as Sanojesi äärelle, but great nonetheless

Orwell – Exposition Universelle (Folkwit Records) – complicated to play but easy to listen to, Exposition Universelle is a multilayered and very French progressive/baroque pop album.

Scythian – Hubris In Excelsis (Hell’s Headbangers) – a brilliant album which could easily have made the list had I not forgotten about it until now

My Dying Bride – Feel The Misery (Peaceville) – Especially impressive as I’ve never really been a fan of the band, this is an immense, cathartic work of art

Sufjan Stevens – Carrie & Lowell (Asthmatic Kitty) Stripped back to (almost) its basic elements, this is an incisive indie folk masterpiece

Drowning The Light – From the Abyss (Dark Adversary Productions) – The best work so far by the Australian BM terrorists; big, confident and (at times) surprisingly subtle

Shining – Everyone, Everything, Everywhere, Ends (Season of Mist) – you have to respect Kvarforth for not caring that I want him to make another Halmstad. Wish he would though – but this was good.

Sleater-Kinney – No Cities to Love (Sub Pop) – the ten year hiatus since The Woods seems to have been good for the alt-rock stalwarts – as good an album as they have ever made

Barshasketh – Ophidian Henosis (Blut & Eisen Productions) – a strong album, especially notable for the way the band makes a coherent whole out of unpredictably serpentine song structures

Vargnatt – Grausammler (Eisenwald Tonschmiede) – Derided by some for its pleasant qualities, this was a perfectly balanced work of nature-inspired black metal

Faith No More – Sol Invictus (Ipecac Recordings) – Okay, it wasn’t Angel Dust (or even the best album Mike Patton has made in the last 10 years) but it was Faith No More, and pretty good overall….