Tag Archive for 'joanna newsom'

burning the bowery, and other stories;

Published on February 3, 2010 in music. 5 Comments Tags: , , , , .

This year is already shaping up to be a healthy one for albums from my favourites. I’ve been listening to The National on repeat a lot of late, and the as-yet-untitled follow-up to their blog-busting Boxer is scheduled for release in May. Says songwriter Matt Berninger:

We started out trying to make a fun pop record. I had the word HAPPINESS taped to my wall. We veered off that course immediately. We’ve narrowed it down to about 15 songs now and it’s going to be our best record (one song you can dance to) but it can’t be described as happy.

Cannot. Wait. Tour dates are already beginning to emerge, but there’s only one scheduled for the UK at present – 6th May at none other than the Royal Albert Hall, which I can’t see as being anything other than pretty freaking special indeed.

Details are also beginning to emerge for my man Malin’s next release. Jesse Malin and new band St Marks Social – perhaps a deliberate billing to mess up iTunes libraries everywhere, given the artist’s legendary contempt for the digital? – will release Love It To Life on Side One Dummy Records, 27th April 2010. And to celebrate? The band have an NYC residency at the Bowery Electric over February and March. Jealous? Me?

I’d list the dates, but I may as well just direct you to the website in a funk :)

Malin’s current labelmates The Gaslight Anthem are rumoured to have a new release later this year as well, and I’m also getting pretty excited for Joanna Newsom’s forthcoming triple album!!!!, Have One On Me.

What releases are you looking forward to in the next couple of months?

Coming up on LYG later this week, or as soon as I get around to it: an exclusive interview (!) with David Bazan, and a review of the new Frightened Rabbit album.

child of the noughties: it’s bound to melt your heart for good or for bad;

Published on November 26, 2009 in music. 14 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .
This entry is part 3 of 4 in the series best of the noughties

Surprisingly to nobody, in the end I couldn’t steer clear of the “best of the decade” chat that is dominating the blogosphere at the moment. Last time around, of course, there wasn’t a “blogosphere” – and I wasn’t really listening to music at all! This decade has seen my rebirth as a music fan and so, in a way, perhaps every album I call “special” or “personal” or “favourite” is could belong in this list – whatever nickname we ultimately give this decade. Personally, I’m more interested to see what trendy buzzword we come up with for the next one!

Over the next four weeks, I’m going to count down my favourite forty – one per artist – albums of the decade and, while there might not be any massive surprises, I’d be thrilled if you used this as an opportunity to pick up something you haven’t had a chance to listen to yet.

Kudos to Kate, for inspiring me with her similarly themed post on Facebook.

20. The Gaslight Anthem: Sink or Swim
2007, XOXO
The “one album per artist” rule I’ve stuck to so far on this list has its toughest test yet, as my love for the Gaslight Anthem’s two full-lengths is pretty much equal. In the end, a rougher sound and less of the musical namechecks that tend to put the naysayers (and my Googlers) off, as well as the inclusion of my favourite of their songs, swings it for their debut. Sure the singer thinks he’s Springsteen and the bassist James Dean, and the band itself isn’t exactly tearing up the rule book, but that doesn’t take away from the times good and bad their output has soundtracked over an eventful decade’s close.
If you download one track, make it: “We Came To Dance”
BUY: Sink Or Swim at Amazon.co.uk

19. Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins: Rabbit Fur Coat
2006, Rough Trade
Don’t get me wrong: I really, really like Rilo Kiley. But I loved flame-haired frontwoman Jenny Lewis’ solo debut. An incredible mix of folk, gospel and blues, augmented by lush harmonies from the Watson Twins, that did much to make Lewis a seeming permanent fixture in music blog eye candy towards the end of the decade.
If you download one track, make it: “You Are What You Love”
BUY: Rabbit Fur Coat at Amazon.co.uk

18. Thea Gilmore: Rules for Jokers
2002, Flying Sparks
Of course, the point of a retrospective like this is to turn up those gems you’d all but forgotten. Ask me to recall one album from the past life in Edinburgh that I revisit in those Friday morning historical blog posts and it would probably be this one – a CD booklet first flicked through on Kaite’s bedroom floor and a collection of seriously rockin’, seriously heartbreakin’, alt.folk from a singer-songwriter who would have been a household name by now if there had been any justice in the world.
If you download one track, make it: “This Girl Is Taking Bets”
BUY: Rules for Jokers (Special Limited Edition) at Amazon.co.uk

17. Sun Kil Moon: Ghosts of the Great Highway
2007, Caldo Verde
Everything about this record is beautiful: the artwork, the packaging and of course Mark Kozelek’s ethereal voice, a security blanket wrapping me up in a dreamworld where my heartrate slows and panic subsides. The melody here is understated, comforting and familiar.
If you download one track, make it: “Lily and Parrots”
BUY: Ghosts Of The Great Highway at Amazon.co.uk

16. Joanna Newsom: The Milk-Eyed Mender
2004, Drag City
The voice is the first thing you notice. It’s raw, childlike and probably like nothing you’ve ever heard before. You might hate it, at first, until you listen to the strange lyrics and delicate harp, scales like kittens’ feet on a piano, and decide you wouldn’t have it any other way. The music of Joanna Newsom is fresh, otherworldly and – above all – compelling.
If you download one track, make it: “Peach, Plum, Pear”
BUY: The Milk-Eyed Mender at Amazon.co.uk

15. Sleater-Kinney: The Woods
2005, Sub Pop
In many ways they were my “band of the noughties”, but with this screaming swansong Sleater-Kinney delivered a sucker punch to an industry sorely needing one. The Woods actually seemed to herald an exciting new direction for the Portland, OR trio – one that was sadly never to be. I miss them desperately.
If you download one track, make it: “Modern Girl”
BUY: The Woods at Amazon.co.uk

14. Okkervil River: Black Sheep Boy
2005, Jagjaguar
One of those bands whose career I worked backwards through: it was Okkervil River’s big-hitting recent albums that caught my attention, but this release remains their opus. A “concept album” of sorts, based around a little-known folk song and detailing the love between a girl and a monster-not-a-monster, it’s a masterly collection of beautifully crafted, lyrically complex songs.
If you download one track, make it: “Black”
BUY: Black Sheep Boy [Definitive Edition] at Amazon.co.uk

13. The Twilight Sad: Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters
2007, FatCat
I proved at the weekend that I can’t even talk about the Twilight Sad without going into some kind of a rapture over the night they changed my life, exploding into my heart as if from nothingness, loud and grinding and yet gorgeously melodic. Some things deserve to be discovered in the dark, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, so see them live if you can.
If you download one track, make it: “Cold Days From The Birdhouse”
BUY: Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters at Amazon.co.uk

12. Kathleen Edwards: Back to Me
2005, MapleMusic
I always seem to pick the boy singers; preferring, as I said once, to imagine myself as the girl sung about rather than the girl doing the singing. But then I discovered Kathleen Edwards, fell for her immediately and bought up what was at the time her entire discography in the one weekend spent trying to imitate her throaty, slightly bruised voice in my bedroom while working out the chords to “One More Song The Radio Won’t Like” on the guitar I never really learned how to play.
If you download one track, make it: “In State”
BUY: Back To Me at Amazon.co.uk

11. PJ Harvey: Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea
2003, Island
Stories From The City… might have been the last album I discovered “the old-fashioned way”: under the covers, headphones clamped in my ears and John Peel’s Festive Fifty soothing me to sleep. It was certainly the most important. Curiously less raw than both Harvey’s earlier and later work, each song a standout standalone, this album sounds as fresh on a rainy afternoon at the end of the decade as it did to a mouldable teen discovering her own musical fingerprint at its start.
If you download one track, make it: “A Place Called Home”
BUY: Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea at Amazon.co.uk

NOTE: Album title links almost always take you via my referrer page on Amazon.co.uk. I’m trying to save up for Christmas, so help a blogger out and pick up a fantastic album into the bargain!

distinguished colleagues, dead music writers, brides, i apologise;

Published on December 14, 2007 in aff the telly and music. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

I’m sure you’re all anxiously awaiting my cultural deliberations on the year just passing, in the form of my top ten albums and all the usual rubbish. It’s coming, hopefully this weekend – time permitting. To whet your appetite in the meantime you can read John Darnielle’s list for Filter.

And I rather liked The Daily Growl‘s recap of his 2006 list, to see which of his favourite albums have withstood the test of time. For now, let us travel back and make like it’s 2006, when everything looked a little bit like this.

My current top ten from the crop of 2006 probably looks a little something like:

10. Long Blondes: Someone to Drive You Home (3)
In 2006, girlie glamour was the order of the day. I raved about the Long Blondes both on these pages and for Young Scot. Like all the best sugar treats though, it’s not a thing to be chewed over. I find myself skipping by a lot of this album’s tracks these days, but it always makes a welcome reappearance whenever there’s a party to playlist for.

9. Lily Allen: Alright, Still (NE)
I didn’t have the full album in time for List Season, but it’s not any sense of make-up guilt that’s causing me to include this pure pop brilliance now. Lily’s brilliance is particularly relevant in the wake of Kate Nash’s album being such a disappointment (but more on that later), plus she looks super-hawt in her photoshoot for January’s GQ.

8. The Mountain Goats: Get Lonely (10)
I’ll admit I was a little bored at first, but those songs stand the test of time.

7. The Decemberists: The Crane Wife (1)
A case of how the mighty have fallen for last year’s #1? Not really – if you’d asked me after their storming gig in February I wouldn’t have thought so. I’m sure this is one I’ll be coming back to.

6. Amy Millan: Honey From The Tombs (9)
For some reason I never remember to list this album as a favourite off the top of my head, but it’s all still on my iPod and I listen to it constantly. Lovely, lovely stuff.

5. Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan: Ballad of the Broken Seas (NE)
I didn’t discover this album until covering the double-act for Is This Music? in January and it’s gone on to be a favourite.

4. Joanna Newsom: Ys NE
What a difference a year makes. This time last year I found Newsom’s lush, layered, second effort hard work. Now, sinking into its otherworldly five tracks for an hour is a favourite form of escapism.

3. Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins: Rabbit Fur Coat (2)
This one remains pretty much unchanged, particularly in the light of a disappointing album from Rilo Kiley this year. I know the Shellstar disagrees with me on this one, but I think it’s a classic.

2. The Hold Steady: Boys and Girls in America (7)
Look, I’m actually being rather restrained here. As you all know, The Hold Steady were one of my heart’s dominant pressures in 2007 and guess what? The album was only released over here this year. Twice, in fact. The Guardian made it #3 on their list. But, having bought the album in New York towards the end of 2006, I shoved it onto last year’s list before it had time to grab me and the live show have a chance to convert me. Two shows in a week in February beckon, and I can’t bloody wait.

1. Lucero: Rebels, Rogues and Sworn Brothers (5)
But, when it comes down to a straight choice, Lucero win out. There’s at once a wildness and an innocence in this album which Craig Finn’s burdened teenage heroines can’t quite match.

Elsewhere, in the first of many tedious (to all but me) updates on the subject: here are some pictures from the first week of filming on XF2 (no Gilly yet, but I do love me some Amanda Peet). Note no smart FBI gear for Mulder, which would appear to imply consistency with the mythology – at least at this early stage. Also, I hadn’t realised that Floyd Red Crow Westerman, who so memorably portrayed Albert Hostein in the series, died this week until I went looking for those Lily Allen photos, so RIP.

if everybody knows how it’s gonna end//why doesn’t someone stop me;

Published on January 18, 2007 in a little more personal and music. 22 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

Number of music magazine reviews completed: 5 of 8
Number of said reviews which slag off Belle & Sebastian: 1

But it’s a work in progress and, to be fair, it’s a little difficult to curse the name of that heinous blotch on the face of Scottish music when you’re writing about scuzzy, feedback-heavy, shouty music for spotty fifteen-year-olds who think that song titles with swear words in them are cool”.

The devil makes work for idle hands. As I wait to see final proofs on my own magazine, I’ve already reported one particularly heinous copy-and-paste enthusiast to Myspace abuse. Practice random acts of evil: it makes your day pass so much more quickly.

It’s been snowing on and off all morning here and while more rural ares of the country are bedding down under fluffy white blankets of the stuff it’s yet to lie anywhere within sight of my fifth-floor office window. City Centre winters are such a cop-out: what makes it in the way of snow is rendered to slush by rock salt and buses before most of us have even stirred from our beds. Heads down, trudging into biting winds and freezing horizontal rain the fairytale winters of our childhoods seem a lifetime ago. The trains might not be running, but you’re still wanted in the office by 9am.

I love to curl up on the sofa with the fairylights on; listening to the rain outside while I sip from a mug of tea. It feels lovely and homey in November, when the leaves are changing colour and the nights are drawing in. In recent years, however, January has become a ferocious beast which roars in the night and consumes the wheelie bins; bringing with it an ominous cold that seems to reach with icy fingers into your very soul. The chill in my feet I can’t quite get rid off puts me off for the rest of the day.

I suppose if I didn’t love my new black Converses so much I could wear more waterproof footwear and would feel a little warmer.

I’m listening to Ys and envying California the wild beauty of Joanna Newsom. Such spellbinding stories seem to belong more to the untamed edges of my own country than the Sunshine State: perhaps the closest our own music has come is Edwin Morgan’s vocals over the crashing sonic waves that form the last minute or so of Idlewild’s The Remote Part album.

I hate that, when I think of Scottish music, what automatically springs to mind is disgust and twee deedeedee deedeedee deedeedee the boy with the Arab Strap. But that’s my own failing, not yours.

Shuffle. Of course the subtleties in most of my favourite music, the sassy bar-room brawls and lovers and losers driving cross-country in the back of some ancient Cadillac, won’t even translate for the Scottish accent. What sounds like freedom through the eyes of Craig Finn or Jesse Malin sounds inauthentic in our tiny back yard; like a hand up a skirt, a jaikie brawl or a dream on the dole. My winter malaise and dissatisfaction talking.

running down a busy street
she was drunk when she kissed me

…she’s just that kind of girl.

I close my eyes, take a breath, and wait for summer and adventure to roll around again.

“can you keep a secret? i’m trying to organise a prison break.”;

Published on November 6, 2006 in aff the telly, art & culture, blogging & pixlet and film. 21 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , .

I’m tremendously frustrated with this evening’s intermittant interweb connection and a Monday headache; one that feels like a sickly black, spongy growth in the back of my skull that no amount of painkillers can shift. I’m drinking some gorgeous cranberry/orange juice combo but I’m craving an ice-cold Coke like nobody’s business. I haven’t had one in a whole 24 hours, see. That’s some going.

I mentioned my chance encounter and conversation with a poet in an Edinburgh Starfucks last week: well, one of the many things we talked about was the nature of art, and how we believed it impossible to term a work “art” until it had been experienced, assimilated by somebody else. I believe that engaging with a work is as vital as any other part of the creative process – while it’s stretching the imagination somewhat to term what I post here as “art” the principle is the same; what’s the point of shouting into the wilderness? Music, books, movies may be technically very “good” – however we choose to define this, of course – but unless I can engage with it on a personal level it is meaningless to me.

I found this quote, from Richard Kearney’s On Stories, in the handout that accompanied the piece of theatre that my sister took me to on Friday night:

Storytelling invites us to become not just agents of our own lives, but narrators and readers as well. It shows us that the untold life is not worth living. There will always be someone there to say, “tell me a story”, and someone there to respond. Were this not so, we would no longer be fully human.

While I don’t think I necessarily believe that the untold life is not worth living, it’s a beautiful quote nonetheless.

Alice Bell wasn’t one of those things I engaged with in any way sadly – a tale of love, hate, war, identity and ukeleles. The Scotsman critic dug it; I on the other hand was reminded of one of those horrendous pieces of performance art after which everybody in the know sits around feeling tremendously smug and set apart from the rest of us who were never in on the joke.

Things I have engaged with these past few days: Chasberry Gin, which my pretty one created by sloshing some of her Archers Aqua in my drink at the bar at the 13th Note but which I’d imagine one would recreate by pouring equal parts gin and raspberry schnapps over crushed ice, topping up with tonic and finishing with a raspberry and a squeeze of fresh lime. Rewatching Lost In Translation in my jammies with a plate of Chinese food at the weekend. Joanna Newsom’s epic, otherworldly Ys. Last night’s Torchwood – I can’t help but roll my eyes at those critics who laugh off what they see as the show’s too-knowing “adultness”: sure it’s trying to find its feet, and sometimes gets it clunky and wrong, but did it not occur to anybody that perhaps the brains behind such shows as Queer As Folk always wanted to explore these avenues with this universe, these characters? Even Borat; which I had never seen but always imagined would be purile and one-dimensional. Of course it was, but mixed in with equal parts candid camera show and social commentary, and easily the funniest thing I’ve seen since Jason in full ninja get-up emerging from my pantry.

Anyone fancy testing out the “subscribe to comments” feature Jonic got me to install on this here blog? I would do it myself, but I’ve barely managed to stay online long enough to download it. Will you find it of use?