APRIL 2012 PLAYLIST

I introduced the playlist last month as if announcing the arrival of summer. I should have known better than to put faith in the British weather; the only things you can really rely on are music and Arsenal’s ability to mess up a certain top 3 finish. I think my mantra for this site should be that there just isn’t enough time to listen to everything now we have 100 years worth of recorded music available to us, so be selective. That’s where I come in, I’ll help point the way...

ECLECTIC WARRIOR APRIL 2012

Silver Morning Branches – VOICE OF THE SEVEN WOODS (I saw this guitarist, real name Rick Tomlinson, supporting Davy Graham around 2006. Graham was probably showing his age a little and so it’s fair to say that this support act, playing solo acoustic on the night, gave the audience the closest taste of the kind of Acid-Folk wizardry they’d come to hear; it’s a shame Voice Of The Seven Woods turned out to be a single album project, although Rick has continued to wave his wand in other musical explorations) / Black Doe (Radio Edit) – MARY EPWORTH (Talk about finding the very thing you’re looking for on your doorstep! Weird and wonderful Psychedelic folk magic from a North Essex chanteuse with songs inspired by, amongst other things, Hatfield Forest! I’m writing this the morning after witnessing Mary Epworth & The Jubilee Band sweep all before them at a gig in Bishops Stortford and it’s not very becoming of me to start gushing too much so I’d better stop typing but I do just want to say first...they do a far more extensive, dramatic version of this track live and if you’ve got even the most passing ear for anything Psych, Acid-Folk or Garage you have got to catch this band in 2012, they’re a happening thing for sure!) / Love Interruption – JACK WHITE (At no point in the past 15 years has Jack White been anything less than vital, he continues here on his first solo outing) / Zumm Zumm – DJANGO DJANGO (If only more current pop music had this much fun bouncing out of its grooves) / Kling I Klang – PAUL WELLER (Like on so many other tunes from his latest album, there’s a healthy dose of the “what’s he on about?” to this lyric, my guess it’s a kind of hellish snapshot of the mindset of a soldier firing on the adrenaline of a violent war situation. Then you catch a lyric that mentions the ‘Saracens Head’ and it could be about the after affects of a heavy night at an Essex boozer. I doubt it though, once again Weller’s juiced up and sounding inspired. 2008-to-now has been arguable his greatest ever period) / Lazy Projector – ANDREW BIRD (A devastatingly beautiful moment of wistful reflection, a highlight from Andrew Bird’s brilliant latest album ‘Break It Yourself’) / Terremoto – EL GRAN CHUFLE (Trance like surf guitar meets swinging Morricone lines from...well London, Paris and everywhere, let’s call them an international combo. Their Myspace page says that they transport you “on a Lisergic Sicodelic Dance experience with fun and sensual kinesis”. Well if you don’t want to listen after that description stop pretending you like music!) / Sit Right Down – TOOTS & THE MAYTALS (When Toots Hibbert appeared on the Ronnie Wood Show he told a great story about how ‘Pressure Drop’ was written as a kind of threat-in-song to shady record company types who weren’t paying him the money he was owed. “The pressure’s gonna drop on you”. He also played Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ and sat there grooving and gurning with Ronnie just digging the music; this is what all music TV should be like) / I Take What I Want – THE ARTWOODS (Hard, soulful, pile-driving R&B from one of the most under-rated of 60s bands. Ronnie Wood was not a member of The Artwoods incidentally as is so often thought, although his older brother was and they took their name from him, Mr. Art Wood) / Down Down – THE SILENCE (Found on a Mod compilation, it would be more at home on a Freakbeat or Nuggets set but either way it’s ace) / A Piece Of Leather – DONNIE ELBERT (This is the funky little track the Ronnie Wood thought has a girl singing, one of those infectious little 60s numbers that after a couple of listens beggars belief it’s remained relatively obscure) / Tell Me What You See In Me (Alternate Take) – SANDY DENNY & THE STRAWBS (Sandy Denny seems to be getting a decent amount of appraisal and attention at the moment which has to be a good thing. There’s a tour coming up in May with members of Fotheringay and cool people like Joan As Policewoman playing her music which should be worth checking out. For me the love affair with her sound has lasted 15 years or more and I, regrettable, rarely hear anything that I’m not extremely familiar with. This however, is a genuine hidden gem in her catalogue. The ‘Sandy & The Strawbs’ album is an often over-looked moment in her legacy, perhaps collectors are put off by the over-familiarity of the early 70s budget label issue of the album which inevitable does give it the air of a lesser essential work. However, it isn’t. This track actually comes from the CD re-issue and is one of several must-hear bonus tracks; in this case a version of the song with fantastic swathes of gentle, folky psychedelia) / La Grande – LAURA GIBSON (Opening track on the fantastic new album ‘LA Grand’) / Belmont Jackass – LORD MELODY (There are no hidden meanings to the lyrics of this twee little slice of Calypso but then again...at times it sounds like a personal attack on the wife of Mighty Sparrow?) / Demons – LULU AND THE LAMPSHADES (They got my attention with the exceptional ‘Cups’ video that did the rounds on YouTube last year; this helping of ghostly lo-fidelity tunefulness shows however, that there’s a good deal more to love here than mere gimmicks) / Through The Night – REN HARVIEU (In a similar vein, this is a singer with a classy line in yearning 60s flavoured pop tunes who has a long awaited debut album coming up this year; it has been on hold while Ren has recovered from a bad accident that left her with two broken vertebrae) / Bold Soul Sister – IKE & TINA TURNER (As the playlist takes a soulful turn, check out the Tina Turner ad-libbing on one of Ike Turner’s funkiest licks; I like the idea that she was just told to sing about “things and stuff” and so did just that! What, though, was she thinking with “sock it to me biscuit”!) / Bitch I Love You – BLACK JOE LEWIS & THE HONEYBEARS (I’d like to dedicate this one to my wife) / You’ve Got It – BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN (It’s too easily ignored what a great Soul Revue style of performance Bruce can pull off when he’s in the mood. On this great tune from latest album ‘Wrecking Ball’, it’s clear that he’s still got it as well) / You’re The Kind Of Girl – LEE FIELDS & THE EXPRESSIONS (Cool bit of new old school from the old school) / Tell Me A Tale – MICHAEL KIWANUKA (Cool bit of new old school from the new school) / I’m Going Home – PRINCE CONLEY (That this is Memphis Soul on the Stax label by a popular Blues singer from back in the day is pretty much all that needs to be said really) / Tosta Mista – HOODED FANG (It’s not only Essex that’s getting delightfully fuzzy in 2012 it seems; from the new second album by the Canadian collective) / Wild Goose – M.WARD (Sometimes it seems that all the best new stuff sounds a little like old stuff at the same time. They don’t always sound quite as ancient as M. Ward’s tracks though; his best tunes shine like they’re tapped from a long forgotten golden font at the dawn of creation) / Fine Horseman – ANNE BRIGGS (Sandy Denny remains my favourite female vocalist but, if Anne Briggs had just recorded a bit more music than the handful of sessions we know about, she could well have been her closest challenger) / Lonely Woman – THE MODERN JAZZ QUARTET (An Ornette Coleman tune, played by one of the most musically dexterous combos Jazz has ever seen; the mixture of innovation and proficiency makes for a classic) / Down To Earth – ZOE RAHMAN (Opening tune from my favourite Jazz album of the year so far) / P.S. You Rock My World - EELS (1998’s study on a slow death brought on by cancer is brilliant yet harrowing in places. I feel the Eels masterstroke though was ending the album on such an uplifting note; emotive doesn’t even begin to describe it) / The Yellow Princess – JOHN FAHEY (Picking up the expressive, far-out acoustic vibe that Voice Of The Seven Woods kicked off this playlist with; this time from one of the masters leading us neatly into more unexpected Psych territory) / The Earnest Of Being George – BEE GEES (That the Bee Gees are famous for their Disco era stuff is almost as wrong as it would be if Paul McCartney were best remembered for ‘Mull Of Kintyre’. Their 60s and early 70s period is routinely masterful) / Guru-vin – DON SEBESKY (As a Jazz arranger for labels like Verve, A&M and CTI in the 60s and 70s, Don Sebesky frequently showed a flair for the eclectic with his genre merging creations as demonstrated impeccably with the far-out vibes on this one) / Everything’s Blue – FAT MATTRESS (Noel Redding left the Jimi Hendrix Experience to form Fat Mattress and explore the West Coast flavoured sound he couldn’t get near in Hendrix band. Their debut album was a classy effort, not anything like as heavy as people might have expected and this track is one of the few penned by Redding on his own) / Port Of Morrow – THE SHINS (Wrongly accused of too much production polish and gloss on their latest album I think, this title track from said record does enough in itself to rubbish all those theories) / Ooh Yeh Yeh – GRAHAM COXON (Typically, Coxon saves the most immediate track off his latest album to last, it’s as if he doesn’t want you to notice how good he can be) / It Be’s That Way Sometimes – NINA SIMONE (The late 60s RCA run of albums was Nina’s best period, here we have the opening track from the ‘Silk And Soul’ record which was actually written by her brother Sam Waymon) / Unfortunately Anna – JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE (From the new album ‘Nothing’s Gonna Change The Way You Feel About Me Now’) / The Heart Of Saturday Night – TOM WAITS (In my appreciation of the later Tom Waits art-project years, I sometimes forget to enjoy the finer moments of his earlier Jazz’n’Jive incarnation) / Can’t Be Long Now - CARAVAN (Last month I featured a late period Soft Machine track, this time round it’s the other great act to form out of the ashes of Canterbury’s mid-sixties cult band The Wilde Flowers. Caravan rarely get the credit they deserve as pioneers in the Prog-Rock movement yet they were effectively playing with that genre before it was even recognised as such. Other than the lavish Psychedelic progressions and passages in their sound, the one other key element that pulled them free of the studious instrument-gazing pack was a subtle humour and playfulness in their work. This track comes from the brilliantly titled second album ‘If I Could Do It All Over Again I’d Do It All Over You’ and being by far the longest track on the album they obviously had to be knowingly contrary with the song title too. Basically though, it’s a great late 60s period piece and a gorgeous way to bid farewell to this months’ playlist and look forward to some cricket that isn’t rained off. As I write this, the sun has just started to shine for what feels like the first time all month. So we bid farewell to, as people have frequently called it this past week, “the wettest drought on record”.)
Eclectic Warrior April 2012

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN - Wrecking Ball

Bruce Springsteen has built a 40 year recording career around his all-American everyman persona, singing of life in his homeland from the perspective of the people who can relate tangibly to his subject matter. From the burning desire and aspirations of a young man from New Jersey in the seventies, yearning for escape but unsure which way to run, to the good-old-boy blue collar rocker persona he inhabits today. It’s worked so well for him over the decades too, enabling frequent comment on the political situation and the painting of lucid pictures on relationship dramas, scenarios and consequences from the real world around him. In 1987, when aiming to write more broadly about love, with added depth, he took inspiration perhaps more than ever from his own personal life, in particular a recent divorce. That album, ‘Tunnel Of Love’, was one of Springsteen’s best but his writing suffered for the first time in his career immediately after. The Bruce we first glimpsed in the 1990s sounded lost, uninspired even, singing about not-so-taxing problems such as failing to find something worth watching on TV. It took a re-connection with the E-Street Band (quietly laid off around 1989) and the impetus of September 11^th 2001 to refocus him, which when it happened did so in spectacular fashion on 2002’s ‘The Rising’. Since then he has generally maintained a high standard of work, a healthy output both live and in the studio that's included his own unique take on American Folk music with the ‘Seeger Sessions’ album, effectively putting a rocket up the genre in atypical Bruce style. Approaching his sixties though, it did start to look like another classic album of original material could be a big ask. When will we learn to stop underestimating the man? Once again, home soil turbulence that has stoked The Boss’s creative juices leading to a remarkable new record.

The thunderous nature of the opening drums on ‘We Take Care Of Our Own’ pretty much sets the tempo for the whole record. The man has something to say and he wants you to listen, so it's attention grabbing hooks and beats on overload. The message is clear; Bruce is hurting and hacked off that the put upon US working populace are left to struggle to keep their own house in order amidst poverty and unemployment with no capacity or impetus to think in terms of community, it rankles with him. This is not the promised land, instead his people are forced to whore themselves out looking for 'Easy Money', as heard on the second song. ‘Jack Of All Trades’ is the first slower number; about making do in hard times, it’s a simply sung textbook Springsteen hymn but there’s an undercurrent. Scraping intensity and disquiet illustrated in the unsettling layers of sound beneath the song nearly exploding when Bruce gets to the line about having a gun and shooting the “bastards on sight”. It’s a trick pulled off exquisitely a few times across the album, with a straight ahead song, taken at face value, actually evoking the pressure of impending poverty and bankruptcy that leaves too many families feeling like they’re close to breaking point, that they could drown at any minute. ‘Death To My Hometown’ is a glorious stomp to the casual listener but here again, just like on ‘Born In The USA’ in fact; the fist pumping celebratory vibe is just a mere smokescreen for simmering rage. “We know that come tomorrow none of this will be here, so hold tight to your anger, don’t fall to your fears” he sings on ‘Wrecking Ball’, voicing it like a rallying cry that’s none more bitter and defeated; as if to say there’s nothing here we’re going to hold onto so let’s just have a ball and smash it up. Here again though, Bruce speaks with an authority that few, least of all me, would dare question; if anyone has earned the right to speak for the inner psyche of the American working man it’s him.

Next we get a little diversion from the main text, a foxy little number called ‘You’ve Got It’ that struts the kind of come-on Bruce hasn’t shown much since his 80s pomp doing hammed up live versions of his song ‘Fire’. Does it seem a little out of place in context? Of course it doesn’t, all the best dramas throw a little sex into the mix and this track is actually one of the best songs on here amongst some strong company. There’s room for a touch of reflection in the second half but it’s almost always tempered with a steely resilience. ‘Land Of Hope And Dreams’ starts quoting the old folk song ‘This Train’ but there’s a twist, for this train is carrying losers, whores and lost souls alongside the winners and saints. A moving sidenote to both this and the title track is that they feature the last recorded work of sadly passed E Street Band saxophonist Clarence Clemons. Bruce's imploring everyone to keep faith always sounded so uplifting next to the 'Big Man's' emphatic accompaniment and it's effect was in no way lessened on their swansong together, but even that positivity seems like false hope on penultimate track ‘Swallowed Up’, where the beaten are merely disappeared from the world. It plays like a mournful requiem, at odds with the fight and fire we’ve seen elsewhere. Beautifully judged and arguably the only appropriate place to leave this set but that’s not Springsteen’s style, never knowingly taking his audience down and then leaving them there. The raucous barn-dance scene on celebratory closer ‘American Land’ may lyrically be the most baffling thing on here, is that sarcasm where he sings of immigrants of a land “where gold comes rushing out the rivers”? Maybe Bruce just wants to remind us of the bright and glorious land his home was once regarded as in order to reignite some of that ambition. After all, the thing that comes through crystal clear on this record is that he cares deeply about his subject matter. It’s at times like these that we really catch a glimpse of the fire in Bruce’s belly that made him one of our greatest Rock songwriters and performers in the first place.

You can Rock to Springsteen’s ‘Wrecking Ball’ by listening here:

Bruce Springsteen – Wrecking Ball

ZOE RAHMAN - Kindred Spirits

When writing about any Jazz, particularly when it's an album that I'm seriously loving like this one, there's always a nagging tendency to over-sell or explain it. It's a habit born of the overwhelming impression I get that Jazz remains a dirty word for far too many music fans; hence the predilection to describe exactly what it is that's floating my boat. This is of course pretty insane because, more often than not, with Jazz it really is all about the music. It's the vibe and the groove and whether or not you're really feeling it. The only way to establish these facts is by listening, giving this music the time and attention it deserves and letting the magic cast a spell. On 'Kindred Spirits', super-talented pianist Zoe Rahman takes you on a multi-cultural journey that swings it's jazz pants like a bad-un; it's a record that rides the waves of musical dynamics and melody just for the sheer thrill and adventure. It's both loose and wild yet simultaneously skilled, dexterous and considered. Given time, it's pleasures are revealed to be both enduring, endearing and endlessly fascinating; a suite of music that bounces between classical, bhangra and even a traditional Irish jig at one point. Essentially though, at it's core is a purists Jazz sensibility that positions this as one of the essential Jazz albums of our time.

So therein lies the problem, because when an album is this good I really want to see it reach out as far as possible, but too often people seem scared of the genre. Zoe has been here before too, with her 2005 album 'Melting Pot' earning a Mercury Music Prize nomination. I remember throwing cricket balls at the TV screen the year Kit Downes Trio got the token Jazz nomination for the prize. Some gimp off of Radio 1 was on there talking about how he'd really had to put the effort in to listening to Kit's album and that in doing so and "nearly getting something" he had something to tell his grandchildren! I expect he's since been able to return to his more palatable staple diet of spud-in-a-bucket landfill Indie. But that's the tragedy as I see it, the brick wall any decent new Jazz record comes up against in the media. As good as the work (in actual fact, against the odds, his radio shows are exceptional) that Jamie Cullum does in music broadcasting it's not enough; and he's Jamie Cullum!

As a long term music fan I've always had affection for albums that take a bit of listening to, the ones that require a few plays before their true pearls of beauty start to reveal themselves. These are the records that can often be the most rewarding in the long run. Prog-Rock has plenty of titles that fall into this category, Classical music too but arguably the best hard-work albums can come out of the Jazz arena. The irony with this exceptional Zoe Rahman album is that it doesn't really require any effort to get into at all. She's got such a tuned-in musical ear that she pulls off the rare trick of being instantly accessible and fascinatingly intricate all at the same time. She's surrounded by some pretty heavy duty players too, all of whom bring an overall explosiveness to the table. Oli Hayhurst on double bass is a total groove monster at the bottom end whilst Zoe's brother Idris has this kind of liquid energy on clarinet. There's even a nice cameo from Courtney Pine on alto flute but nothing deters from the centre stage pounding of Zoe's keys. This is piano playing like few can master; she rocks the keys, caresses them and glides across them majestically in the same way Hendrix did on electric guitar. I know most Jazz players are blessed with great technical ability but it takes more than technique to bring music alive, there are other harder-to-define ingredients that 'Kindred Spirits' has in spades. Maybe it's time for all you Jazz-a-phobes to have a revision.

You can let Zoe Rahman's 'Kindred Spirits' take you on it's journey by listening here:

Zoe Rahman – Kindred Spirits

TINDERSTICKS - The Something Rain

Tindersticks have spoken about the process of putting their band back together after breaking it down around 2003, how they needed to let go of the past in order to move forward. It is certainly true that artistically they have continued to create some impossibly beautiful music since then, recording new albums that in no way lessen their overall canon. But I’m not so sure that they’ve divorced themselves from the past that much, at least sonically. There are elements to the Tindersticks sound that remain a constant, not least those aching Stuart A. Staples that forever wander the avenues of morose, hurt and maudlin. Their arrangements may grow ever more lush; the textures and layers evolving over the years to levels of proficiency that border on slick but make no mistake there’s a Tindersticks default setting forever haunting, ghostly and somehow intimidating. There are emotional depths in this bands work that on occasion are so raw that theirs is arguably the purest kind of soul music (just go back in their catalogue and find a version of the soul classic ‘I’ve Been Loving You Too Long’ to witness their vast capacity for simmering, slowly escalating emotive feel and then you may find my arguing for the soul in their work a little more credible) but they couldn’t sugar coat these areas of their sound even if they wanted to. So I suppose it’s a bit of a stretch to contest that you’re not sure what to expect with a Tindersticks album; nevertheless the first track on ‘The Something Rain’ is a surprise.

In terms of tone there are no new leaps with opener ‘Chocolate’; the band playing an almost ambient, gently moving and atmospheric background to a spoken word story yet the voice isn’t that of Staples but sole writer David Boulter. It’s a supremely well detailed and poetic piece, told with the flair of an acute storyteller sucking you in with neat little snapshots of the characters’ thoughts and circumstance, propelling the narrative smoothly. Boulter’s recital is spoken in a soft dreamy voice that does indeed melt like chocolate over the track; the surprise is that it’s on first impression rather twee and even a little out of place on a Tindersticks record, it’s the kind of thing you’d expect from Belle & Sebastian. At the risk of giving you a spoiler though, the end of the story throws up a delightful little twist that pulls everything firmly back into this bands’ ballpark and the only real puzzle is that they didn’t save ‘Chocolate’ to close the album. When you first listen to the record and the pounding cinemascope landscape of second track ‘Show Me Everything’ arrives, setting the audio back to a more familiar Tindersticks mode, you’ll find yourself still thinking about the preceding piece and its unexpected ending. Even when you listen again and know where the story in ‘Chocolate’ is heading, it’s told with such style that your listening pleasure in no way diminishes.

Being recorded in little bursts of activity over a 16 month period perhaps lends the album an air of a collection of little Tindersticks snapshots rather than a neatly constructed whole. In the middle of the album is a Staples standout in ‘Slippin’ Shoes’ that summons their ability to perform something warm and soulful that still somehow retains an ever-present melancholy. ‘This Fire Of Autumn’ steps up the tempo but still conjures images and thoughts of dimming late summer days and burning fields; ‘Frozen’ and ‘Medicine’ by contrast are typically cold and tense. So all in all we end up with a relatively short, 9 track album that represents business as usual for this finely maturing collective. You wonder if they may hit a tipping point where the possibilities within this musical avenue start to feel more like a cul-de-sac but for now, each new album reveals work of sufficient substance for them to see no reason not to continue in this vein ad infinitum. To this day it remains the case that a new Tindersticks album always delivers something wholly special to their extending body of work.

Tindersticks – The Something Rain