So it's been a quiet week for music, which is a shame considering I must have over 30 albums to get through still filed under 'B'. It's been difficult to listen to much music at work this week because we've been so busy, and at home I've gone to bed early with a temperature a couple of nights this week, and then been out another 2. Anyway I'm off on holiday for a week from tomorrow, so hopefully I might be able to make up for the lack of listening over the weekend. It's been a strange listening week so far... I thought I'd try some of my old Drum and bass albums - Essential Drum & Bass 2 is on the Beechwood label in case you were wondering why it's filed under B. And actually, it's pretty awful for working to. I need something with a bit more variation to keep me going. Plus computer speakers were never known for their suitability of handling deep sub-basses and the like! So I thought I might go back to the Beastie Boys, and there are some awesome tracks on Ill Communication - "Sabotage", "Tough Guy", "Flute Loop", but there's a lot of filler on there too... I've enjoyed Biffy Clyro a lot today though. I also managed to get to hear some new music for the first time in a fortnight by borrowing Black Stone Cherry's eponymous debut album. It's kind of like Black Crowes if they'd listened to more Soundgarden. Good, especially at the beginning, but my interest kind of petered out towards the end of the album. I liked it enough to relisten to the first two tracks again mind you. The Baby Bird CD is brilliant. If all that you think of is "You're Gorgeous" then you should really go out and get one of his first 5 'home-brew' albums. They're lo-fi masterpieces, full of 2-3 minute snatches of dark brilliance. With the sheen of pop production, he lost the edginess that made him great. So today I returned to the aforementioned Biffy, and Belle & Sebastian who must be one of my most played artists ever, despite only owning the one album. I still want to get Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant if only for the awesome title. Tomorrow I must get round to Kate Bush and Bjork...
I'm looking forward to next week - The Cure, and also Nick Cave's latest album - DIG, LAZARUS, DIG!!! (caps intentional) which was released this monday just gone. Great timing!
Oh. My. Gosh. I have like a gazillion 'B' albums. Fortunately most of them are pretty good, but I don't think I'm going to get through them all this week. If I'd counted Poppy's Beautiful South and Barenaked Ladies CD's I would have been even more swamped! So in the end I decided that CD's belonging to other people are not to be used within this experiment. Unfortunately it means no Blur or Blink182, but I'm going to have to live with that!
Anyway today has been a Bowie day, in part cos I've been thinking about how they'll never make a third DI Gene Hunt series. What would they call it? To follow the pattern, it would have to be set in the 90's and named after an iconic Bowie song released in the 90's. So that's what? "Jump They Say"? "Hallo Spaceboy"? pffft.
I'm going to have to content myself with not necessarily listening to every CD under B this week, and just go with what i feel like. I fully intend to listen to the 'forgotten' albums though, and I made a start today with Bullet for My Valentine's The Poison which was again, better than expected. The first half of the album is particularly good, though it does eventually;y dissolve into too much nu-metal shoutyness without enough melodic riffage. Jeff and I saw them play Download a year or so ago and they did pretty much tear the place up. As usual, I kind of wish I'd seen them after a few more listens to the album...
The other thing about 'B' is that it seems to house an unusual amount of drum 'n' bass albums from my collection. So I'm starting those with the Roni Size project known as Breakbeat Era. It's very dubby with nice timestretched and shattered snares under a sultry female vocal. If you like "Brown paper bag" or early drum n bass, it's well worth a listen.
Most listens this week: 3 way tie between Ash: Trailer; Aqualung Still life; and Asian Dub Foundation: Community Music. Unexpected pleasure: a.c. acoustics: Victory Parts Song stuck in my head: "The Colour Line" by Asian Dub Foundation Least appreciated album: Avant Hard by Add (N) to X
It was a fun week. barely got any listening done at home over the weekend, in part cos we were out and about a lot. I'm enjoying it so far anyway, though it's weird to think I won't listen to any of those records for another 6 months. Already I've achieved one of my aims - to rediscover 'lost' or favourite albums. Next week should be fun with Biffy Clyro, Bowie, Beatles, Bloc Party etc.
Well, Afro-Celt Sound System were far more interesting than I remembered. That was the first album I've listened to this week that I bought during the six months I worked at HMV Cardiff. I should think I bought a good 40% of my CD collection during the time I worked there because of the generous staff discount. Listened to ADF again an enjoyed it once more, and VIctory Parts was alse good once more. I'm not growing bored of 'A' yet, thank goodness. Iwas getting fed up of the poorly resized images so I've widened the page to make room for them, and intend to redo the rest of the website at some point.
Well, yesterday was unusual as I only played one album, but by golly did I enjoy it. Asian Dub Foundation's Community Music is by far a better album than I recalled. Very contemporary sound, a real fusion of western and south asian sounds. It really fired me up and I would have turned it up loud had I been at home!
I enjoyed it so much i put it on again this morning, although my album playlist script seems to have lost it somewhere... might be a clock set wrong somewhere!
Today I also thoroughly enjoyed Arcade Fire, an album I only bought 2 weeks ago, and it's continuing to grow on me. I'll be sad to leave it for 25 weeks! Victory Parts sounded good today as well, not sure why... And Adam and the Ants was better than I recalled too, although the latter stuff (Puss in Boots, Strip etc) compares poorly to Stand and Deliver, Ant Music, Prince Charming, Goody-Two Shoes etc. I found an old Afro Celt Sound System Cd last night, so that will be on fairly early tomorrow morning but I don't hold out much hope for it. I remember it being very samey, with too much Celt and not enough Afro. Once that's played, I'll have played every 'A@ album at least once.
Ever since I first had lardy cake, when a neighbour took me to her (v. desirable) beach hut at Hill Head, I've always had a fondness for that most unhealthy of foods, lard. I'm told that as well as it's suitability for baking, it's one of the best things to cook chips in, and now I learn, you can sculpt with it, too!
