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

music of my mind (whether I like it or not)

Since the age of 13 or so, music has been an important part of my life. I have written about it for various places, including here, here, here, here and, um, here, but more than that, I listen to music that I don’t have to write about pretty much every day.

I was going to write something about my favourite songs or whatever (and may do still), but thinking about it made me tune into the music that plays in my head, almost constantly and seemingly involuntarily, as the general background to my day. Involuntarily, because when tuned into, it becomes obvious that quite a bit of it is stuff that I wouldn’t necessarily listen to at all. Trying to keep track of the music of your mind is difficult though, because as soon as one focuses on it, one begins to/you begin to – that is, in my case I begin to influence it. Even when it is music that you like and listen to by choice, it’s rarely anything that seems specific to the present moment in a movie soundtrack kind of way – at the moment for instance, it’s Deirdre by the Beach Boys. It’s January (cue January by Pilot – sometimes the conscious mind and/or context does influence these things), so not really a season associated with the Beach Boys, I’m not especially in a Beach Boys kind of mood, I don’t know anyone called Deirdre; but the subconscious mind has determined that that’s what we are playing right now. Playing, but also listening to; it’s peculiar when you think about it.

Though the trombone on Deirdre (which I love) prevents it from being a “cool” choice, this could of course be an opportunity to display cooler-than-thou hipsterism, but as you’ll see in the (mostly DON’T) playlist below, lack of conscious control seems to equate to lack of quality control too. With that in mind, I won’t include things that popped into my head fleetingly, like the immortal Everybody Gonfi Gon by 2 Cowboys or jingles from advertisements by Kwik Fit (or, more locally, Murisons, whatever that is/was). Not that the songs below have all appeared in their entirety – in some cases I don’t even know the whole song, in several I only know a few lines of the lyrics. So anyway, here – as comprehensively as I can make it – is what I have “heard” today, with notes where there’s anything to say and concluding thoughts at the end…

The 5th January 2023 being-playedlist – *warning* contains actual songs

Thank You for Being a Friend (Theme from the Golden Girls).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV7AXRABSng

I have no idea where this came from or why I should apparently be thinking of it, but it’s been a regular on the ‘playlist’ this week. I’ve noticed that some songs stay in rotation for a while, sometimes evolving along the way. A key feature of these kinds of songs is that the ‘voice’ your brain chooses for them and the lyrics etc might be quite different from the real ones, especially when it’s a song you don’t actually know the lyrics of. I haven’t seen The Golden Girls for decades, or heard the theme tune (I included the video without playing it), so this seems an especially odd one. But perhaps it’s an early morning thing; while writing this it occurred to me that the theme from Happy Days has been popping into my head in the shower a lot recently.

Wham! – Last Christmas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8gmARGvPlI

It feels like extremely bad taste to be subjected to one of my least favourite festive songs, after Christmas, especially since I seem to have successfully avoided this one last year – but oh well, something in the Golden Girls theme apparently suggests it, since they tend to occur together.

Frank Sinatra – Young At Heart

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZRn4auk4PQ

I’ve never intentionally listened to this song, but I guess it’s part of “the culture.” But at least it’s less mysterious than the Golden Girls theme; on my early morning walk there’s a creaky gate that makes a note that somehow puts this song in my mind, though it took me a few days to realise that’s what was happening.

Magnum – Just Like an Arrow

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

I like this song – and cheesy 80s Magnum generally – a lot, but it’s another one I haven’t intentionally listened to for a long time. Maybe this is my brain’s way of telling me to revisit it?

Jim Diamond – Hi Ho Silver

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6mjSAgxusM

Still stuck in the 80s, but this time in the company of a song I loathe and detest; why brain, why? Isn’t this another one that’s TV-related in some way? John Logie Baird has a lot to answer for, clearly

Men at Work – Down Under

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfR9iY5y94s

*Still* in the 80s, but at least it’s a song I don’t dislike. I’m not sure if I’ve ever deliberately listened to this song (you didn’t need to “back in the day”, you heard it everywhere) but it’s been a regular visitor to my brain for many years. There was even a harrowing few weeks (or months – it seemed like a long time) – when it formed a weird medley in my mind with Paul Simon’s Call Me Al (one of the few of his songs I actually dislike). Except that Call me Al had different lyrics at various points. I remember that the flute (recorder?) part of Down Under came in just after the last line of the chorus. Since that time, whenever I’ve heard that song I’ve been half-surprised that the segue doesn’t happen.

The Supremes – Baby Love

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAWSiWtUK2s

At least most of these are cheerful songs I guess? This one always makes me think of that objectively quite strange scene in Quentin Tarantino’s (in my opinion) best movie by miles, Jackie Brown

Mull Historical Society – Barcode Bypass

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StWYuUbl4M8

Oh well, they can’t all be cheerful. I’m guessing the opening line “let me get my gloves/and walk the dogs for miles” has something to do with the inclusion of this one. I like it, but the weary melancholy is not at all the mood of most of these.

Slayer – Raining Blood

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy3BOmvLf2w

???Why not, I suppose?

King Crimson – Fallen Angel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLlmbCkb3As

Mysterious: I like bits and pieces of King Crimson but I’m surprised to find that I know this song at all, since I don’t even own the album it’s on (Red, 1974) or any compilations etc. I wonder how I know it? I had to look it up from a fragment of lyric that I knew, but sure enough, it’s Fallen Angel. I thought the only song of that title that I knew was the arguably superior one by Poison, but that’s an argument for another day

Souls of Mischief – ’93 ‘Til Infinity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXJc2NYwHjw

What this has to do with anything is anyone’s guess; I like it, it’s a classic and all, but I think I heard an alarm of some kind in the distance that somehow morphed into that noise in the background during the “Dial the seven digits” bit. But more importantly, is Tajai really wearing a cricket jumper? And if so, how come he looks cool doing so?

Which brings us up to date and Deirdre: but what other wonders lie ahead?

The Beach Boys – Deirdre

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsDYy1l6TQU

Conclusion: Hm. I don’t know: the subconscious mind is almost a separate entity with different and broader tastes than its conscious host? Or it has a masochistic streak? Or absorbing decades of unwanted stimuli from pop culture means that there has to be a continual processing (with some regrettable but hopefully harmless leakage) in order to function in any kind of normal, rational way, like an overspilling of the dream state into the waking one? Or maybe the brain is constantly making observations and connections that are necessary for its normal functioning (things like intuition and mood) but which the conscious brain has little or no access to except in this oblique way. A lot of this stuff is from the 80s, when I was growing up and absorbing knowledge etc: whatever; being human is strange sometimes. Hope you’re enjoying whatever your brain is treating you to today!

what January 2020 sounded like

Despite the portentous title, this is a round up of things I was sent by nice PR people that sounded interesting, since I said at some point a while ago that I’d do this regularly (and why not?) so here they are, in alphabetical order, because that’s simplest.

Artist: Collectress
Title: Different Geographies
Label: Peeler Records
Release Date: 6 March

I mentioned it here, but have to say more about it now that I know it a little better. If their previous album Mondegreen sounded like music from a benignly haunted doll’s house, Different Geographies has the same gently spooky charm, but takes (even by their standards) strange departures, like on Mauswork, where their oddly Victorian string arrangements blend with electronic elements, or the beautifully wistful single In The Streets, In The Fields, a truly timeless melange of strings and modern sounding percussive elements and howling noises; which sounds much prettier than that description would suggest. Even within the album – and its individual pieces – it’s unpredictable and hard to define, with songs like the busy Landscape taking unexpected twists and turns during its five and a half minutes.
As with all of Collectress’s work, the music on Different Geographies is strongly visual and does strange things to time; a magical, otherworldly record full of delicate moods and strange musical non-sequiturs.

Artist: Little Albert
Title: Swamp King
Label: Aural Music
Release Date: 27 March

I’m always a bit dubious of the blues as a style, rather than as the product of a specific, African-American culture from a specific time period, but since it definitely is one (and really, if one can accept Eric Clapton as a blues musician then anything goes), I can say that this is a very cool sounding record, notwithstanding that it was made by a young white Italian guy (Alberto Piccolo) best known for his work in doom metal band Messa. Doom is of course the closest metal comes to the blues, and there’s a monolithic, Black Sabbath quality to some of the songs here, notably the cover of Robin Trower’s Bridge of Sighs. In fact, it’s a pretty good album if you like gritty, bass heavy blues of the late-60s type; it sounds great, and the most worrisome factor, Alberto’s vocals, are actually really good; his voice isn’t as powerful as his guitar playing, but emerging from the darkness with a hint of reverb it’s more than acceptable. With all the caveats that come with a heavy blues album from 2020, Swamp King is kind of awesome.

Artist: Nuclear Winter
Title: Night Shift
Label: self-release
Release Date: 7th February

Very polished, melodic death metal (at times almost like death-power metal) from Zimbabwe, this is essentially not my cup of tea at all. I’m always curious to hear music from places not normally associated with that kind of music and sometimes (there’s a great Saigon Rock and Soul album that I think I’ve mentioned before, also that Mongol Metal split from 2015 and last year’s compilation Brutal Africa of death metal from Botswana) it really shows artists approaching familiar musical ideas from a really different perspective. Here it doesn’t; with no disrespect to Gary Stautmeister – who wrote, played and sang everything here aside from some guest vocals – this is an album of classy modern death metal which could have just as easily come from Sweden, France or wherever. The plus points are that he writes cool riffs (Blueshift) and solos, can do both raw and melodic vocals well, as well as writing proper songs. The minuses – well, none if you love this kind of music. I can absolutely imagine Nuclear Winter signed to a label like Relapse or Nuclear Blast; he’s very good at what he does and if you like those Scarve/Sybreed type of bands, give it a go.

Artist: Pia Fraus
Title: Empty Parks
Label: Seksound/Vinyl Junkie
Release Date: 20 January

Something like an Estonian Slowdive-meets-Drop Nineteens, Pia Fraus have been around for ages (22 years!) and this is their millionth (I think sixth) album. It has a great title and is incredibly nice. As shoegazey/dreampop type albums go it’s pretty upbeat, wistfully happy, rather than wistfully sad and mostly relatively up-tempo with at times (like Love Sports) a Stereolab kind of texture.
The female (Eve) and male (Rein) vocals go very nicely together (hence the Slowdive/Drop Nineteens comparisons, they are rarely – exception; Slow Boat Fades Out – quite as ethereal as My Bloody Valentine) and although it’s hard to choose highlights from an album where all eleven songs are quite similar, it stayed nice all the way through without getting boring* and never became twee, so that’s an achievement in itself. I don’t know enough of the band’s other work to say how good the album is by their standards, but if you like the atmosphere of those Sarah Records, Field Mice kind of bands, but not their ramshackle amateurishness, this is highly recommended.

*if you’re in the mood for pop-shoegaze. If you’re not I imagine it would be extraordinarily dull

Artist: Revenant Marquis
Title: Youth In Ribbons
Label: Inferna Profundus
Release Date: 20 January

British black metal of the ultra-mysterious one-nameless-entity type, I really liked the imagery and atmosphere surrounding the album before I even heard it and the music didn’t disappoint. It’s the (I think) fourth RM album, but I’ve only heard bits and pieces before so I guess I’ll have to get the others now. Murky, very rough (it sounds loud even when played quietly), atmospheric and extremely black, it reminds me of early Xasthur and the chaotic obscure nastiness of Manierisme, though it’s never quite that eccentric. The key to its non-crapiness is that, just about gleaming through the surface noise and thunderous rumbling are strange queasy melodies, often simple but very effective and, crucially for this kind of music, every aspect (music/lyrics – insofar as one can make them out/themes/imagery) works together to make something bigger than the sum of those parts. And though the album rarely really gets better than the superb opening duo of Menstruation (a kind of ceremonial intro) and Ephebiphobia (actual black metal), it maintains that quality throughout. Hating teenagers and school (specifically Tasker Milward School; a moody highlight is The Blood Of Lady Tasker) is, oddly, a theme that runs through the album, though I guess that’s no less than the title promises. Loved it.

Artist: Sunny Jain
Title: Wild Wild East
Label: Smithsonian Folkways
Release Date: 21 February

After a Zappa-ish opening fanfare, Indian-American percussionist Sunny Jain and his excellent band bring together a vibrant and sometimes slightly indigestible mix of Morricone-esque rock and jazz with south Asian elements. It’s very good; at times it reminded me a bit of one of the all-time great soundtracks, Rahul Dev Burman’s Yaadon Ki Baaraat, but also the superb Kaada/Patton album Bacteria Cult. At times the album takes on a droning quality which gives it a very positive, summery feel, but at times, most noticeably on Osian, that becomes a loud, busy, blaring quality and a few more of the beautiful, quiet moments would have made it an easier record to love. That said, I haven’t heard anything else quite like it and it’ll definitely be on my playlist for a while.

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)