MARCH 2012 PLAYLIST

The arrival of springtime brings with it a tidalwave of new music. Unfortunately as the land has turned to green once more and we've basked in some unusually early warmth, you need to shovel past the mass of summer festival pitching bland indie and club fodder to get to the good stuff but seek and you shall find. March has thrown up some exciting releases from, amongst others, a positively blooming Andrew Bird and an increasingly impressive Norah Jones. We've also found time to remember Earl Scruggs and Billy Strange on their passing and mix it in amongst our sumptuous stew of Rock, Folk, Blues, Jazz, Reggae and Soul from throughout the eras.

(I Know) I'm Losing You - ROD STEWART (from the album 'Every Picture Tells A Story', it seems incredible that his standards should fall so low by the end of the 70s, never to return either. What a shame too because Rod Stewart in the late 60s, early 70s, hungry for success but crucially hanging out with the right crowd, living and breathing the music, delivered an awe inspiring spell of creativity both solo and with The Faces; some essential British Rock albums that could effortlessly visit Folk, Soul and Blues, often on the same track) / Better Get Hit In Yo' Soul - CHARLES MINGUS / Primitive Girl - M. WARD (a taster from the forthcoming album seems to predict a comfortable maturity and passage towards a status as one of the pivotal singer-songwriters of this period in music)/ We Take Care Of Our Own - BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN (just like Neil Young with his 'Living With War' collection, it always seems to be the old guard who can sum up the times we live in most concisely and here the Boss is doing just that)/ Happy Pills - NORAH JONES / How Come - LITTLE BARRIE / Phantasmagoria Blues - MARK LANEGAN BAND / Ease Your Pain - JACKIE DeSHANNON / Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah - BOB B. SOXX & THE BLUE JEANS (an early Phil Spector production on which the distorted guitar solo of Billy Strange is an outstanding feature)/ Some Velvet Morning - NANCY SINATRA & LEE HAZLEWOOD (Billy Strange really made a mark with his magical psychedelic arrangement on this classic track)/ A Little Less Conversation - ELVIS PRESLEY (Billy Strange co-wrote this tune with Mac Davis for the film 'Live A Little Love A Little' and it's definitely one of the great tracks from Elvis's all too brief late 60s second wind)/ I Can't See Nobody - BEE GEES / Since You Broke My Heart - MASCOTS / You Got It - ETTA JAMES / In The Middle Of The Game (Don't Change The Play) - BETTY WRIGHT & THE ROOTS / Know It To See It - THE WEATHER STATION / Anyhow - LEONARD COHEN / The Nodder - SOFT MACHINE / Papa De Da Da - CHRIS BARBER AND HIS JAZZ BAND / I Won't Hurt You - THEE OH SEES / Hold It To The Fire - WHITE RABBITS / Standing Alone - THE WILDEBEESTS / 1941 - HARRY NILSSON / Love Is A Tricky Thing - JULIE FEENEY / Foggy Mountain Special - LESTER FLATT & EARL SCRUGGS (Earl Scruggs was a genius Banjo player whose thumb and three fingers on his right hand picked out Bluegrass tunes with impossible speed and intricacy and the man was no musical conservative either, losing some of his long standing audience at the age of 50 in the early 70s as he experimented with electrifed sound, a man whose sad departure this month came at the age of 88) / Bang Bang Bang - EILEN JEWELL / Danse Carribe - ANDREW BIRD / Too Far Gone - DONNIE ELBERT (I've been watching the Ronnie Wood show on TV and it's really a great show, actually built around his radio show but that's one of the enticing things as you're treated to fantastic shots of music fans just getting off on listening to music as the records play. One artist Ronnie exposed me to was Donnie Elbert and a quick skim through his back catalogue reveals quite an important, under the radar soul dude with an impossible high pitched voice, although that's not quite the case on this track) / Remember Me - JODIE MARIE / Ten Commandments - PRINCE BUSTER / Ice Cream Man - TOM WAITS / Those Days Have Gone - TRAFFIC SOUND / Move On Alone - JETHRO TULL / Home Again - MICHAEL KIWANUKA / Day Is Done - BRAD MEHLDAU / Roundalay - OSCAR PETERSON TRIO / Chocolate - TINDERSTICKS (I'll leave you with one of the greatest story songs to appear in recent times, from the new Tindersticks album. It needs following through to the end where you get the same kind of unexpected conclusion that worked so well on the Velvet Underground track 'The Gift')

Eclectic Warrior March 2012

LEONARD COHEN - Old Ideas

If you're inclined to call Cohen's music depressing because of it's ultra mellow sound then I'm probably not addressing you with this text. If you appreciate music on such a shallow, upbeat and fluffy of subject matter equates to good while slow, occasionally mournful and broad of content means bad, level then there's no hope for you anyway. I'd take songwriting with depth any day of the week over tossed off formulaic anthems built around a beat. Leonard has made a career out of taking his time with albums and won an adoring following who appreciate the care and attention to detail. He's given us a catalogue that, whilst generally slow, heavy duty and occasionally ponderous in tone, pushes the same emotional reflexes sparked by all the best poetry, drama and literature; heartache, familiarity, suspense, regret, humour, love, sorrow and wonder. That said, it's a hard sell to convince a non believer to kill the cliche when the opening track here deals with Leonard's own mortality. He meditates on "going home without my sorrow, going home sometime tomorrow, going home without this costume that I wore". It's a gorgeous opener and while clearly not a joyous subject matter, Leonard appears to have a resigned smile on his face and even sounds prepared to welcome the release of his "burden".

The sound on that opening number utilises a couple of other contentious elements around Leonard's production methods over the past 25 or so years. Firstly there's that keyboard and rhythm that some have likened to the cheapest Casio device with dialled-in presets you'd buy for an 8 year old. I will admit that there have been odd tracks over that period where that insult isn't a million miles away from fact but, in his defence, he's made a joke of the mechanical absurdity of it in concert (just check his exquisite comic timing and dry sense of fun on the 'Live In London' film) and I can't think of a single track that suffers from such a bold arrangement decision. I'd bet he's always known exactly what he's doing; presenting the composers own versions of his songs in such basic, budget friendly settings so to leave room for re-interpretation and fleshing out by others. It's worked too, just look what eventually happened to 'Hallelujah', both stripped back and vamped up by different performers resulting in both critical and commercial success. Besides, look back at his earliest recordings and it becomes clear that Leonard has always done this; those almost toneless nylon guitar strings on his first records also sounding like the instrument of a novice.

He's also been questioned over his more frequent use of female vocalists on albums, a tendency that has stepped up a little on the last three records. It's not uncommon for Leonard's ladies to take a whole verse without his participation while the man himself delivers in a style increasingly akin to a growling mantra. Again though, I'd argue that he has always done this and it often suits Leonard's core subject matter perfectly. Aside from the obvious benefit of a contrasting vocal texture to Leonard's low rasp limited in scale, the man loves to dig around the nuts and bolts of male and female co-existence. Here too I'd refer you back to his earliest recordings; think about 'So Long Marianne', a soothing female presence is never too far from Cohen's work, or indeed life! He simply knows how to play to his strengths, which in a couplet is lyrical composition, whilst retaining a keen awareness of his own musical limitations.

Still this album will stand out in the long run as a major part of his catalogue (a fairly cheap bit of praise really for if you look at his back catalogue it emerges that Cohen has never really suffered any real dip in form) because of a section of songs in the middle that more than any time since the 1970s recall his gentle guitar strumming sound. It's subtle at first, 'Darkness' introduces the section acoustically before opening out with keys and drums into a devastating study on living through end times. Next track and Leonard may be singing over soft electric keys but it's with a flare that recalls some of the drunken characterisation he brought to the table on 'New Skin For The Old Ceremony'. That song, 'Anyhow', is dripping with delightfully desperate lines like "even though you have to hate me could you hate me less?" Still it stands as a mere warm up for the knock out blow that is 'Crazy To Love You', a song on which he sings like he did right back at the start of his career over nothing more than a picked acoustic guitar pattern. In doing so is he trying to bring his catalogue full circle? If that is the case kudos must be handed out for his ability to still construct songs of such class and quality. Maybe this is what is meant by 'Old Ideas'? With Leonard Cohen the only idea you need to take on is to appreciate the substance of the songwriting and understand that the performance is always honest, without pretence. It's applicable to every single record he's ever made and this is indeed one of the finest.

Listen to the whole album here:

Leonard Cohen – Old Ideas