New(ish) music - October 2023

I admit that I haven’t given the playlist as many listens as I normally do - this month I have taken many a dark mindquest in my search for profundity and wisdom.

Still, betwixt and between my attempts to become a grim and mirthless man of consequence, I have found time to give TFJ a spin, usually when doing chores. It’s hard to embody a bleak manifestation of unsmiling angst when doing the dishes, you know!

Let’s hit shuffle…

Lemon Firebrigade - Haircut 100

You know what this one reminds me of? A past entry onto this playlist called ‘Falling and Laughing’ by Orange Juice. And who chose it? Yours truly. Inevitable I was going to love this. Bright and bouncy new wave with a brush of exotica from an album that I properly rate. There’s an inherent joy to this music that cuts through even on the rainiest October afternoons. One of the best platters this month.

HSKT - Sylvan Esso

I’m not sure the lyrical content does a huge amount for me, but the rather abrasive lockstep electro certainly does. I like the way it rubs up against a rather carefree-sounding vocal - and that’s a cool voice, no? It’s got a bit of character to it. I’m not sure if I could take a whole album of this jive, but as a singular playlist track it’s a wonderful palate cleanser. Great in the car, another place where I struggle to be a man of dismal consequence.

Above All - Bastardane

Great band name…great song? It’s a yes from me! I like the raucous, bruising sound - this one’s a chunky old dumptruck of a tune, shouldering its way through the crowd. Although it’s evidently a modern production there’s an almost classic metal slant to the proceedings. I wonder if this passes Jason’s sniff test, namely, that it sounds like the band could beat him up? I don’t know what’s going on there, I’ll leave it to someone more qualified than me to comment on his obvious psychosexual confusion!

See You Next Fall - All Them Witches

I saw these chaps with Ollie when they supported Ghost. Then, it sounded like they were channelling Tony Iommi circa Mob Rules era Sabbath. Here, it kicks off like an Uncle Acid deepcut but quickly (well, as quick as this kind of ponderous stoner-groove can go) evolves into a sound universe that wouldn’t sound out of place on an Alice In Chains album. A band that adroitly uses space in their sound, with the insistent, hypnotic bass anchoring everything. Very suited to gloomy visionquesting.

Beef Bologna - FEAR

If you haven’t seen Penelope Spheeris’ documentary Decline and Fall of Western Civilisation Part II, set in the glam rock gutters of Los Angeles, go and do so. If you have seen it, go and watch Part I, which is set in the hardcore scene. FEAR come across as particularly unpleasant individuals but, along with X, they have quite a regard for classic rock ‘n’ roll. Just how far removed is this really from the Cramps, the Stray Cats or even Gene Vincent? Not a million miles. Solid knockabout fun.

Needles and Pins - The Searchers

As somebody who grew up on a diet of Classic Gold radio, this particular track formed part of the warp and weave of my childhood. Impossible, then, to make a considered critique of a song that soundtracked a more innocent age. It sounds like I’m seventy years old, I realise. So listening to this was a proper Werther’s Original moment, but trying to push past the jumpers for goalposts, etc., it’s just a lovely, chiming pop song with just the tiniest hint of melancholy. Beautiful.

Ride Low - OTTTO

Great band name…great song? Yeah, I suppose so. I liked it just fine, especially the kicky, scuzzy guitar riffing. For some reason the singing didn’t quite resonate with me. The vocalist sounds like someone else, but for the life of me I cannot quite recall who. However, I have worked out who the main riff reminds me of - Cirith Ungol! And Cirith Ungol whip ass, so despite the little bit of static I get with the crooning, this one falls on the side of the angels.

Hate Song - The Haunted

I saw these guys during ‘metal week’ at university, where I saw The Haunted, Lamb of God, Sepultura and Motorhead in the span of six days. These guys played my student union, where I could otherwise be found busting moves to Fatman Scoop, and let me tell you I had the tar beaten out of me in the pit. This song reminds me why - absolutely unrelenting, it sounds like a diesel powered dragon laying waste to a small country, like Luxembourg or Rwanda. ‘Hate Song’ feels a bit on-the-nose for sledgehammer metal of this ilk - a bit like the elbows that repeatedly caught me in the face at this gig!

I Threw Glass at My Friend’s Eyes and Now I’m On Probation - Destroy Boys

Destroy Boys is too good a moniker for a group that makes a song this irritating. I like the music alright - in fact, if this was an instrumental I’d have a much higher regard for it. This wasn’t the mid-month frowny face - alas, this is a song that started to grate on me as the days wore on. I genuinely think I lost a few IQ points honing in on the lyrics. Are these guys worth pursuing further?

Mach 5 - Presidents of the United States of America

Is this my pick of the month? It might well be. An almost perfect balance of sugar and spice here - really hooky, a keen pop sensibility married to a breezy variety of good-time rockin’ out. Hell, even the ‘quiet’ spoken(ish) section absolutely works within the context. This should be the song they’re known for. Another joint that is made twenty percent better when you’re operating a motor vehicle. Love it, love it, love it.

No Vampires Remain in Romania (Dracula Spectacular) - King Luan

What the fuck is this? I can’t even find it within me to be charitable on Halloween.

Maps - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

The hardest song to conjure up from memory here - and even when replaying it again, now I struggle to remind myself as to where the music is going. At least that bloody vampire song stuck in the brain banks. This wasn’t unpleasant at all, and in fact the slightly astringent instrumentation isn’t half bad to listen to at all. So many indie bands sound like this, right down to the little two-note solo that makes an appearance. What’s the deal with that?

New(ish) music - August 2023

Another roundup of 'Two for Joy' - a collaborative playlist with a group of friends, where we listen to and rate each other's musical picks. We're all rapidly approaching middle age.

Ah - the long, languid days of August - the perfect time to kick back with a spot o’ Two for Joy, and perhaps a glass of something cold. Except that August was a right old pudding of a month, and I don’t tend to take any time off anyway; I neither have children nor any natural resistance to the sun, and thus take my leave outside of the holiday season.

One thing I did do, however, was give TFJ a few spins - and so here are my impressions:

It’s Gettin’ Better (Man!!) - Oasis

As a few of you know, Britpop almost entirely passed me by, so save for the big beasts of the genre I’m all at sea with this music. We’ve had a bit on TFJ, and as a matter of fact one of the Oasis tracks (‘Lyla’ I think) was ace. This ain’t ace. It’s alright, perfectly listenable, but it failed to set my heart aflame. I echo the sentiments so far observed, that this feels a little paint-by-numbers in terms of Oasis. Also, song length doesn’t usually feature in my plaints, but if I may bleat about it, this could be shorn by a minute or two and lose none of its impact.

The Narcissist - Blur

A marginally more musically inventive song than the Oasis track, except that I keep thinking it’s about to break into U2’s ‘Beautiful Day’. However, there’s one aspect of this track that really stinks it up for me, and it’s Damon Albarn’s lugubrious vocal delivery. Listen, there are a couple of sadsack singers out there who I actively like, but Albarn has such an unmusical, hangdog delivery that it hamstrings the entire track. Not that I am massively impressed with the whole kit and caboodle but, fuck me, Albarn’s voice belongs in a museum next to Glenn Hoddle’s.

Crows - Charlotte Greig

Lovely. Hard to say anything else, really; a beautiful, live and extremely human performance that manages to be both sweet and haunting. What do I think the crows represent? I genuinely have no idea, which is part of the appeal - there appears to be a deep mystery lurking at the heart of this little song. Is it about depression? Death? Psychosis? All of these? None of these? Am I going to continue writing solely in rhetorical questions? I’ve said it before, but the unadorned voice can be one of the more affecting instruments out there.

SLAY!! - Paledusk, Hideyoshi

When you’re in the right mood, this madcap mishmash of genre, instrumentation and mood can be an extremely fun white-knuckler, but equally it has the capacity to harrow. I don’t think I could take more than a track or two of this stuff in any given go, but one can’t deny the energy, animating spirit and sheer ambition to throw almost anything at the wall in the hope that some of it sticks. You can hear hip-hop, Pendulum, nu-metal and techno in the mix, all often within the span of a few seconds. Chalk me up as a (qualified) fan.

The Batman Theme - Danny Elfman

As I was driving into work one day, this came on; and the part where it ramps up into what sounds like a fanfare hit just as I was cresting a hill, and it made me feel invincible. Listening to film music divorced from its original context is a peculiar exercise - for example, I love Jarre’s music for both Dr Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia, but especially with the latter, I cannot hear the overture without the long-pan across the desert sands, sound and vision in perfect harmony. In this instance, though, I don’t have that same familiarity, to my listening benefit. What I get here is an urgent, goth-tinged fantasia that really stirs something within. Should I put an Oingo Boingo track on the playlist some day?

We Were Never Really Friends - Bruno Major

We’ve had Bruno Major on before now, yes? I vaguely recall a slightly jazzy, quiet-stormish track a few years ago. It didn’t leave much of an impression - as opposed to this, which is my favourite track of the month. I’ve enjoyed hearing it dissected - especially its structural kinship to ‘God Only Knows’ - but I’m also hearing a little George Harrison in the guitar, a bit of ELO balladry in the chord progression and, strangely, ‘Don’t Let It Show’ by the Alan Parsons Project. All to the good, because I’m the closest thing to an Alan Parsons Project ultra that exists. I bleed for I, Robot. I would kill a man over Tales of Mystery and Imagination. Anyway, this lilting slice of melancholia is gorgeous, and there’s a part of the guitar solo, right at the end, that is so tasty I skipped dinner.

Old Friend - Allman Brothers

Absolutely nothing new with this - it’s slide blues played on acoustic guitar. However, what’s novelty when the execution is so sublime? Derek Trucks is, like Warren Haynes, a guy I could listen to mithering away at the pentatonic scale all damn weekend. So, once we’re past the beautifully tasteful guitar, we’ve got, what? A vocal that combines honey and smoke in equal measure. When he sings “Can’t you hear the cold wind?” I swear I felt a little prickling of the skin.

10,000 Years - High On Fire

I have only seen High On Fire once. I was stood in the pouring rain, in a field in Sweden, hungover, clutching a rapidly cooling cup of coffee, with a miserable Swiss girl who, it seemed, had bought a ticket to a festival dedicated to music she actively disliked. The moment High On Fire slammed into the first couple of bars, everything changed - the coffee tasted great, the rain felt like a noble benediction, and who gives a hoot about Switzerland anyway? I have a rather particular sweet spot for this kind of doomy stoner metal, and 10,000 Years is to be found right in its nexus. I just love how it sounds like the notes are stacking on top of each other in the main riff, as if an edifice of heavy metal could be created by sheer force of will.

Can’t Kill Us All - No Man

This fella sure is exercised about something. This one grew on me. The first couple of listens felt like hard yards, but then there’s a kind of wavelength I found I tuned into that made sense of the noise and fury. I still can’t say it’s one I’d actively follow up with - it is a bit intense and splashy for my tastes - but again, it has a sincerity and almost brutal singularity of purpose that is probably easier to admire than it is to like.

Pain - The War on Drugs

If a song could be said to glimmer, or glisten, it’s this one. There’s a soft refulgence to the sound universe it inhabits, as if the swirl of guitars were able to emit a faint neon glow. Putting aside the rather gorgeous quality of the production, the song has a timeless quality that draws upon jangle-pop but also the laidback, sleep-eyed Americana of Tom Petty or Bob Seger. Yes, really! Which gives it quite a grown up quality, as I maintain that Bob Seger is an unknown pleasure until a person hits thirty. At which point you’re handed a crumbling spine, a working knowledge of the layout of your local IKEA and an instinctual understanding of ‘Night Moves’.

New Heart Design - Turnstile

One of this month’s highlights - but an odd duck, no? The verses sound like a slightly postmodern version of Duran Duran, but the chorus sounds like a snotty late 1990s pop-punker. And you can dance to it! There’s even a little wibbly-wobbly bit right at the end in case you were really craving some Mac DeMarco. A hard one to summarise, because just when you think you’ve got a handle on wuss’ bappin’, it’s over and done.

Point and Kill - Little Simz, Obongjayar

I confess that my first spin of this passed me by, and I imagine numbers two and three did as well. However, this has a really insidious quality to it - the insistence of the groove, the push-pull of the different vocals, Little Simz’s sinuous flow - which led to this track really getting under my skin. By the end of the month it was one of the tracks I eagerly anticipated in the shuffle. I love the brass coming in when it does, adding a different texture to proceedings, a kind of brightness and clarity to what is quite a moody, murky backing. A song I started off not caring for, but ultimately loving? That’s Two for Joy, baby.

New(ish) music- June 2023

Below are my reviews to the June 2023 playlist that myself and six friends do; each month we put two tracks on a playlist and, at the end of the month, either meet up virtually to discuss / review / roast as appropriate; or, on occasions when we can't meet, provide written reflections or voice notes.

A word on my two picks for this month - the first, ‘Hodja’ by Todd Rundgren, falls into the category of curio. Rundgren is an eccentric genre-hopper at the best of times, but for this tune (and indeed, the whole A Cappella album) he recorded a diverse collection of songs using his voice alone. This, in the pre-digital era - the most powerful tool at his disposal was an early sampler called the E-mu Emulator. A monstrous task without digital technology, then; even the ‘handclaps’ on ‘Hodja’ are the layered, compressed sound of Rundgren clicking his tongue.

My other pick was ‘I’m A Man’ by Jobriath - a guy who fell into such obscurity that when Morrissey tried to book him when curating an All Tomorrow’s Parties festival, he didn’t realise he’d been dead nigh on twenty years. Jobriath was a former child keyboard prodigy who was hyped to the rafters as America’s answer to David Bowie - and he was gay. Openly gay, in fact, probably before any other rock musician. This whole album is a treat, an overblown, theatrical fantasy that probably edges closer to the collaborations between Jim Steinman and Meat Loaf than anything Bowie ever did. Jobriath died, penniless, of AIDS in 1983.

Okay, time to hit shuffle on this bad boy…

I Can’t Party - Vulfmon

I think I’ve registered my wariness when it comes to humour in music, and my antennae started vibrating immediately; and frankly, it’s not my kind of thing. This flavour of fun is only a step away from that rather deadpan ‘uh, THAT just happened’ seam of joking that makes me wish I didn’t have ears or eyes. Nonetheless, there’s enough silliness and charm here to coast by, and the music sounds like a mutant Donald Fagen number, so in an oblique way I enjoyed it. Bonus points for mentioning Don Rickles.

Gans Media Retro Games - Hot Mulligan

Going by track record I should be in the hater category, so can I shock you? I really like this. There’s a crunch and springiness to the music that I can get behind, buoyed by an expansive production. The singing is a riot too, just stomping over everything with the exuberance of a sugar-dosed toddler.

30 Under 13 - Better Loves

Again, I know I’ve typified some of the music of this ilk as ‘sweaty’ and ‘tryhard’ in the past; but this hairdryer of double-bass pedal drumming and diamond-hard riffing got under my skin. There’s a discipline and precision to it that reminds me of the death metal-prog of late-era Death, which is no bad thing. They even throw a proper ripping little guitar solo into the mix. Heavy metal that sounds like a dozen car alarms going off - what’s not to like?

You Keep Running Away - The Four Tops

Hall of famer. This is right in the Motown sweet spot for me - a little past the era where the pop hits sounded a bit formative, but before the label’s big beasts decided to get all introspective (though that’s good, too - I mean, who could clown on mid-1970s Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson and Stevie Wonder?). The singing is outstanding, the arrangements are funky and the horn parts that typified this moment in Motown history are catnip to me - they absolutely sizzle here. Best thing I’ve heard in an age.

Good Hands - Jason Cruz and Howl

Sad to say that this is the most anonymous of all the picks this month. It’s a fairly pleasant, fairly bouncy pop-rock number. Fine. A few key components are missing - you know, a decent hook, a degree of character and any hint of inspiration.

All and Everything - Spidergawd

Candidate for worst band name this month, but I found myself absorbed with this odd musical chimera. I’m all for bands shoehorning slightly offbeat instrumentation into their signature sound, and they really make the saxophone work in this vaguely NWOBHMish alt. rock. Ghost managed a sax lead on their last decent album. Aren’t both bands Scandinavian? What is in the water / Pripps Blå over there, eh? Anyway, had a pretty gnarly edge to it and made for premium driving music. With this pumping out of the Failwagon, my opps at badminton had no chance.

The Corner’s Dilemma - Free Throw

Eh, has its moments - but lest you think I’ve been kidnapped and replaced a la Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, quite reliably I don’t really dig this. The chorus is pretty kicky, and I am simpatico to the animating spirit behind this (and indeed, much emo music) but the execution often leaves me cold. For a bunch of noise merchants, doesn’t it come across as a bit wet sometimes? A miasma of ‘arrested development’ hangs about this track, alas. What happens when emos age out, I wonder? Do they all get into jazz?

II. Worldstar - Childish Gambino

This goes all over the place, in the best way - seemingly also incorporating soundclips from a couple of those ‘Worldstar’ videos that the internet was freighted with about fifteen or so years ago. Oh, and we’ve got another saxophone guy! Luckily, this never slips into the kind of lassitude that a lot of rap that incorporates jazzy elements can do - blame Souls of Mischief or De La Soul back in the day for this innovation, but some of the more recent stuff is boggin’. The same criticisms were levelled against Steely Dan though - wah wah, why are these wiseacres playing augmented chords in muh rawk music? Well, guess who’s the baby now? Me.

In Spite of Ourselves - John Prine and Iris DeMent

A gentle lollop through the vagaries of growing old but - gosh darn it! - keeping the embers of love a-glowing. Can I play the spoiler here? It’s all so confoundedly folksy. Too folksy! We’re into hyper-folksy territory, folks. Everything from the tastefully picked guitar, through the vocal inflections and right on to the cloying sentimentality of it all…uh. This is the kind of jive I should, by rights, be fully behind, but instead it has me reaching for the sickbag. 

Notorious - Duran Duran

If ever a band should be fully and completely rehabilitated in terms of critical re-evaluation, it’s Duran Duran. Superb musicians all, but a trot through their discography reveals a jaw-dropping facility with slick, punchy pop songs. No exception here. The production dates the song, for sure, but I mean that in a neutral sense, because a bright, crisp sound is exactly what this kind of smart, lightly funky sound deserves. Give ‘Notorious’ the respect it deserves and run it through a good set of speakers. Also, dare I say that Simon Le Bon’s yelp contains more angst than any of our more explicitly emo offerings this month?

Calling Elvis - Dire Straits

Ah, a kind of space-age hoedown from Dire Straits’ cocaine-and-synths era. This is off their last album, I think? Not a great record, though it does contain ‘Iron Hand’, an anti-Thatcher song about the Battle of the Beanfield that somehow wound up in a Nintendo compilation album I happen to own. ‘Iron Hand’ is good, as is ‘Calling Elvis’; good without scraping the firmament. I do have a soft spot for musicians doing songs about other artists, so I got a kick out of Mark Knopfler muttering truncated lines of Elvis lyrics over big guitar and keyboard washes. I love the guitar tones throughout. My one real beef is that I know what Dire Straits were capable of - and this sounds a little flabby in comparison with their early stuff like ‘Lady Writer’ and even ‘Sultans of Swing’, which contrasted the sweetness of Knopfler’s fluent playing with a dash of vim and vigour. I suspect Mark Knopfler talks in exactly the same voice he sings in. 

Cadaver Pouch Conveyor System - Carcass

Is there a little nod to Venom here? Whatever, this absolutely kills it. It’s antisocial enough to bother the neighbours but that imperative is twinned with a really strong sense of melodic invention. There is a restless quality to the guitar work - I take it the great Bill Steer is at the helm, so I’m thoroughly unsurprised. Frankly, this crams so much into four minutes that I’m always left mildly exhausted after a listen - but that’s never been enough to prevent the dandruff from flying!

On to next month, boys - vorwarts immer, ruckwarts nimmer!