The Music Diary Project: Day 2

TUESDAY

0745-0925

Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi: Rome
Keren Ann: 101
Laki Mera: The Proximity Effect (first half)

Because I have lots of urgent albums to review, I decide to start with one that I don’t need to worry about for a few weeks. Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi, on first listen, have made entirely the album you’d expect, Burton’s dusty vinyl grime over Luppi’s string canvas. Norah Jones sounds good on ‘Black’. Then there’s Keren Ann, whose 101 I need to write about quick-smart. It’s making me think Charlotte Gainsbourg, so I’m really earning my money there. Hmmm, Paris-tinged chanteuses.

Laki Mera’s album comes out on my birthday, nearly two months away. Listening to it now therefore makes me feel like Henry DeTamble in The Time Traveler’s Wife. This could also be because I am reading The Time Traveler’s Wife while I listen to it.

1059

Simon & Garfunkel: America

It’s in my head. Does that count? Only one refrain as well.

1123-1143

Rihanna feat. Drake: What’s My Name?
Guillemots: Walk The River

I have a playlist called BACKLOG. It is recently added stuff on my iPod, but because I never clear it out it has 700-odd tracks from the last few months. These two are next to each other. Rihanna and Fyfe, up a tree.

Of Montreal: Expecting To Fly
Casiokids: London Zoo

A AA-side for Record Store Day (16 April: I’ll be nowhere near any record stores, but EVERY day’s a record store day). Of Montreal cover Buffalo Springfield as if they were Rufus Wainwright. Casiokids are space-age like it’s 1981.

1222-1317

Toddla T: Take It Back

Whatever happened to Shola Ama? Oh. She got sent back to 1993. Well, look here, a new TV On The Radio album.

TV On The Radio: Nine Types of Light

This is even more pop than Dear Science, and I think I mean that goodly. Well. Nicely. In a good way.

1458-1629

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti: Round And Round

Some Spotify fidgeting. I’m amazed this was Pitchfork’s track of the year – I mean, it’s great and everything (I loved ‘Fergus Sings The Blues’ after all), but sort of unassuming. Buckles under accolades.

Fleetwood Mac: Rumours

As I advance through my 30s, the ‘Mac loom ever larger.

Kate Bush: Deeper Understanding ’11

I tend to return to the obvious ones – the title track, This Woman’s Work – when dipping into The Sensual World, so it’s been a long time since I heard the original of this. Whichever way you slice it, this is exciting stuff. It’s also helping me come to terms with all the metadata errors in this latest ingest of content.

1815-1930

Prefuse 73: The Only She Chapters
Cocteau Twins: Frou-Frou Foxes In Midsummer Fires
Guillemots: Trains To Brazil
Public Enemy: Who Stole The Soul?
Diana Ross: I’m Still Waiting
Pharrell: Keep It Playa

As ever, when I’m working in a proper, real office with proper, real people, I do most of my listening on the commute. On the way home, I checked out another cracking Prefuse 73 album then spun through some disjointed tracks. That Cocteau Twins song is Heaven Or Las Vegas’s closer; it’s an album that I come to again and again. The Pharrell one is as disappointing as most of his solo set, but sometimes I just have to confirm it. Ross, PE, Guillemots, all great naturally.

Came back home in time to read Junior her bedtime story and then slump in front of the football. Might listen to something else when I do the washing-up. Rock’n’roll. I mean, I might listen to rock’n’roll.

2205-2244

A bit of Later with Jools to accompany the washing-up. The unstoppable jazz fellows put some zip in my scrubbing and I liked The Tallest Man On Earth. Missed Beady Eye, which is a pity because I enjoy watching Liam even if the tunes are mud-caked. Can’t get it out of my head that Elbow are writing deliberate, wet-eyed anthems.

Then pop Radio 1 on for some reassuringly pretty Fleet Foxes, some crunky Nicki Minaj and some barrelling Black Keys. And Nick Grimshaw all genial and enthusiastic. R1’s good in this form, dotting about like my iPod.

The Music Diary Project: Day 1

The Music Diary Project: Day 1

I’m doing Nick Southall’s Music Diary Project, because I love lists like a brother. Some of this will involve Junior, but most won’t because I do the lion’s share of my listening on the interminable commute, and she’s not yet persuaded me to take her to the office. Expect a lot of Scritti Politti, James Blake and, oh look, The Four Seasons.

MONDAY

0820-1025

A long commute because I missed my train, the office has moved and I was, erm, experimenting with routes. It was sunny. Sun = Four Seasons; Four Seasons = Frankie Valli; Further sunkissed 70s FM radio listening = Dennis Wilson.

The Four Seasons: Let’s Hang On
The Four Seasons: Working My Way Back To You
The Four Seasons: Opus 17 (Don’t You Worry About Me)
The Four Seasons: I’ve Got You Under My Skin
The Four Seasons: Tell It To The Rain
The Four Seasons: Beggin’
The Four Seasons: C’mon Marianne
The Four Seasons: Will You Love Me Tomorrow?
The Four Seasons: The Night
The Four Seasons: Who Loves You?
The Four Seasons: December, 1963 (Oh What A Night!)
The Four Seasons: Silver Star
The Four Seasons: Sherry
The Four Seasons: Big Girls Don’t Cry
The Four Seasons: Walk Like A Man
The Four Seasons: Candy Girl
The Four Seasons: Marlena
The Four Seasons: Stay
The Four Seasons: Dawn (Go Away)
The Four Seasons: Silence Is Golden
The Four Seasons: Ronnie
The Four Seasons: Rag Doll
The Four Seasons: Save It For Me
The Four Seasons: Bye Bye Baby (Baby Goodbye)
The Four Seasons: Girl Come Running
The Four Seasons: Let’s Hang On
The Four Seasons: Working My Way Back To You
Frankie Valli: Grease
Dennis Wilson: You And I
Dennis Wilson: Pacific Ocean Blues
Dennis Wilson: Farewell My Friend
Dennis Wilson: River Song
Dennis Wilson: What’s Wrong
Dennis Wilson: Moonshine
Dennis Wilson: Friday Night
Dennis Wilson: Dreamer

1815-1940

Midlake: Late Night Tales
Frank Ocean: Nostalgia, Ultra

Purely work with Midlake, but it’s a pleasing compilation of fuzzy folk and dreamy pop-rock that means a calm journey. Frank Ocean was semi-work, so I could help a pal with a bit of context. I like it, although all that singing over full, pre-existing songs reminds me of some schoolfriends and I attempting to record our own track over Duran Duran’s ‘Tel Aviv’. With the help of some tupperware, and rubber bands over tissue boxes.

tUnE-yArDs, ‘Bizness’

tUnE-yArDs

This is absolutely brilliant.

Will that do?

Perhaps not. Merrill Garbus’s debut album BiRd-BrAiNs was interesting at least, if a little raw in the middle. Ideas pinged off the walls, but one man’s slab of flibbertigibbet genius is a slightly more dour man’s tricksy mess – you could’ve filed Garbus under “challenging” and left her back there in 2009. So, hands up and amen for this dazzling heap of (pretty cohesive) joy.

The sound’s fatter this time and Garbus belts her happy defiance over what I’m calling human-marimba, rousing blasts of horn, saxophone and – hmmm – Zairean guitar. In short, the kind of thing Vampire Weekend might do if they kicked off their deck shoes, sank another couple of Martinis, replaced Andrew McCarthy with Annabella Lwin and had sex.

Junior’s hearing reverb and speed. Or, “I like it because it’s fast and her voice is echoing.” It’s a shot of get-up-and-go for a day’s school, and for the year in general.

George Michael, ‘True Faith’

George Michael

Junior greeted this with what can most fairly be described as ‘interpretive dance’, expressing emotion – or “eeemwwwohhhshun” as Robo-George might have it – via complex hand signals and wafty Kate Bush arm movements. It was apt, really. ‘True Faith’ sounds like some kind of I Am Kurious Oranj re-imagining of the New Order original, built to soundtrack a ballet conceptualised around Barney Sumner’s clunky rhymes. It might just work. Get me Louis Spence.

Poor George. Opprobrium’s been heaped on this version. “I have a fucking question,” he drones. So does everyone else, George. A few, in fact. Why slow it down to funereal pace? Why in Hades do you want to be Jason Derulo? Why defile a song with a video everyone loves [I paraphrase]?

I’m not so precious. First up, I think I’m a topsy-turvy New Order fan, who’s never been that fussed about ‘True Faith’ but loves the apparently awful ‘Confusion’. Secondly, yep, most of you love the original because of a video so 80s Stuart Maconie can appraise it to camera in his sleep.

And thirdly, bit by bit, cell by cell, arm hair by arm hair, this is creeping up on me. It’s starting to work.

Dominique Young Unique, ‘Glamorous Touch’

Dominique Young Unique

“I’m feeling it at the back of my head.”

Junior meant the bass. Pretty soon I was feeling a slap at the back of my head as Junior’s mum clocked all the swearing. I was trying to cough over it, Adam Buxton-style, but the experiment didn’t last long.

A shame, because the track is pure pop, body-movin’ and unthreatening even as Florida-born Dominique bigs herself up. Her “glamorous touch” is hard-won. She grew up in a car, for crying out loud, and has the rough-ready sass to suggest she’s going to do something, wholesome or not. No album yet, but this is the title track of her latest mixtape, a flurry of electro beats, fast-spat rhymes and generous sprays of melody that proves she’s either got tracks to burn or simply can’t be arsed promoting a proper long-player. Let’s take what we can get.

Junior didn’t know this was called ‘rapping’. She declares it “clever”.

Noah And The Whale, ‘L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N.’

Noah And The Whale

Behind all the soft-pedal vulnerability of Noah And The Whale, there’s a ruthless core. How else would you explain a creative trajectory from folky tweeness to panoramic country-rock to FM drivetime over a piddling three albums? That rat Fink knows where he’s headed, but do we? I imagine it depends on Last Night On Earth’s eventual success. If Springsteen-lite gets the tills ringing, perhaps he’ll settle down.

After the unfocused Peaceful, He Lays Me Down and lovelorn First Days Of Spring, the latest is the least challenging of NATW’s albums, a robust chunk of pop that sounds great on the radio. This lead single uses an old trick – ‘D.I.V.O.R.C.E.’, ‘Y.M.C.A.’, ‘L.O.V.E.’ etc – to get a point across in the catchiest way possible. It’s a cheap hook (and few things are more effective than a cheap hook), and a message that continues Fink’s personal story, letting us know he’s moving on from his cri de coeur over Laura Marling. That’s good news for her too; few women in pop have had to endure so much embarrassment, from a whole album mooning over her, to her next beau’s stupid moustache.

Speaking of which, did you hear the one about Laura Marling and the posh bloke with the silly voice? No, the other one…

“Is this your favourite?” Junior asks, because she’s heard me singing it over and over, because I can’t help it, because it carves its own cranny in your brain. I just tell her I can’t help it. She gives the song the wishy-washy thumbs and I wonder where it falls down. “Because it spells it.” The hook’s too cheap for some.

Scritti Politti, ‘Day Late And A Dollar Short’

Green Gartside

Absolute, the new Scritti Politti best of, begins with the hits, modest on both sides of the Atlantic but big enough, for Green Gartside, to constitute a harrowing commercial breakthrough that meant Top Of The Pops appearances, attention fit for a popstar and – rather more welcome – acceptance from the sort of R&B legends he was loosely trying to ape. These first five songs came from Cupid & Psyche 85, an impossibly precise marriage of perfect pop and blue-eyed soul which opened unexpected doors: notably, the chance to write for Chaka Khan and the odd sensation of seeing Miles Davis first cover one of your songs then, gloriously, guest on one.

My early acquaintance with Scritti was intertwined with the law. I bought Cupid & Psyche 85 with the five pounds (five pounds!) I was given as a reward for clocking the numberplate of a thief making off with a local lady’s handbag. Three years later, I was loudly anticipating Provision at a party – quite the conversationalist, me – as the police turned up to suggest the houses nearby might not enjoy us having a bonfire, draining the EEC cider lake and smoking freight-loads of cigarettes in the field right behind them. They might have softened if they’d known how excited I was about Provision.

Moving on, the 90s dawned with ‘She’s A Woman’, an unexpected collaboration with Shabba Ranks that dumped all Green’s philosophical lexicographical automatic hydromatic games with the word “girl” (i.e. ‘The Word ‘Girl”, ‘The ‘Sweetest Girl”) to go distinctly non-meta with a Beatles cover. It was a blip, in design and chronology, as the man decamped to Wales and hunkered down in beer and darts for a decade before popping up with the candy-pop-meets-hip-hop semi-success of Anomie & Bonhomie, where Green sparred sweetly with Mos Def, Lee Majors et al and generally affirmed some B-Boy credentials. Here it’s reprazented by three of the form plus the gorgeous ‘Brushed With Oil, Dusted With Powder’ that harks back to perfect pop and shines a light on the harmonic dreaminess to come – again – many years later.

That return was White Bread, Black Beer, a curveball Mercury nomination that emerged slowly and shyly in 2006 as Green stepped onto a stage for the first time in quarter of a century under the playful Double G & The Traitorous 3 (Plus 2) sobriquet, to focus group the songs first in a Brixton pub, then in a quasi-residence at The Luminaire. The law butted in again, rather closer to home this time, as I was told I couldn’t abandon my baby daughter to go to Brixton, but I made it to the Luminaire a couple of times to watch these songs jump off the page – truly, from Green’s own music stand. None of WBBB makes it here, likely because of its Rough Trade release; but from before my time, we do get three from Songs To Remember (but no ‘Faithless’…) and the fidgety, complex and in this company surly ‘Skank Bloc Bologna’.

And that’s it – apart from two new songs, the ballad ‘A Place We Both Belong’ and this. I’m not sure how new they are, but for Scrittologists they’re exciting enough for being hook-ups with long-time/occasional SP man David Gamson, not seen since 1999’s Anomie & Bonhomie. ‘Day Late And A Dollar Short’ bounces on squelchy bass, teasing a funk from somewhere on the Scritti timeline between 99 and 06, and a chorus that rises and falls with customary pizzazz and – let’s remember what this blog is meant to be about – makes Junior do the hand jive. According to her, it’s “fun”, Which is a bit of a bloody relief because I haven’t half wasted enough time and text on it.

Radiohead, ‘Lotus Flower’

Thom Yorke

While on important business stashing old baby clothes in the loft last week, I discovered an even more crucial use of my time – rescuing some old self-made mixtapes from the dusty cassette drawers to take downstairs and not play because my tape deck’s broken, and therefore clutter up the dining room even more.

One that I can’t wait to enjoy again at some distant point is a gloomy mix made at the end of 1995. Starting off with Tricky’s oh-so-coolly-obscure ‘Nothing’s Clear’ and moving through Parliament Funkadelic & P-Funk All-Stars’ foggy take on ‘Follow The Leader’, Goldie’s ‘Inner City Life’, some acoustic Jhelisa and smoky D’Angelo, it’s sunshine all the way. I think The King Of Limbs would find kindred spirits here, and ‘Lotus Flower’ in particular would snuggle up to Ingrid Schroeder’s ‘Bee Charmer’, where DJ Muggs makes spooky trip hop all drum and bassy.

Separated from Thom Yorke’s daft, standing-on-a-live-rail dancing, ‘Lotus Flower’ is an eerie blues. Remove thoughts of Thom’s convulsions entirely and it’s almost sexy. Its final 30 seconds go higher and higher, a trance state whipped away as The King Of Limbs plunges into its fantastic three-song finale: deep, feet-planted chords and a hook place ‘Codex’ above cousins ‘Pyramid Song’ and ‘Sail To The Moon’; ‘Give Up The Ghost’ is devotional, somehow tender (or ‘Tender’); ‘Separator’ finds a groove in guitars that resemble George Martin’s speeded-up, ‘In My Life’ piano. There’s much to admire in the album’s first half, but it finds its feet with increasing assurance until it’s moving them with controlled joy.

All this analysis is peripheral for Junior, who cuts to the chase, to what we take for granted: the band’s name. “Radiohead? Radiohead?! You have a radio in your head.” She gets up and moves robotically across the room. “I-AM-RA-DI-O-HEAD.”

Lady Gaga, ‘Born This Way’

Born This Way

The litmus test of any new pop record is the opinion of a little girl who already loves the artist unreservedly and will brook no criticism.

So, into this treacherous arena went ‘Born This Way’, and first we gauged recognition: “Is it Lady Gaga?” One hurdle cleared. Further responses to Stefani’s hi-NRG dambuster included bouncing up and down from Junior (five-and-a-half), Junior 2 (two-and-eleven-twelfths) and Junior 3 (a week shy of one) – confirming Gaga’s all-ages appeal – and an unprompted round of applause at the finish.

Then the question we’ve all avoided. Yes, determined to mark ‘Born This Way’’s place in the Gaga pantheon, I asked which was better, this or ‘Bad Romance’.

“Both.”

All that without mentioning ‘Express Yourself’. Unjaded by the past, unworried that all the pop tunes might have been done and everything’s now just a swish rejig, Junior doesn’t hear Madonna in this. Nor does she catch a whisper of ‘Rio’, or Jesus Jones’s ‘International Bright Young Thing’ or even Maxine Nightingale’s ‘Right Back Where We Started From’.

Come to that, she didn’t spot a Joe Satriani noodle recast in ‘Viva La Vida’, nor a short refrain from an 18-minute Cat Stevens song in the same. Because no one really knew them and they weren’t really there.

And she doesn’t fret that Lady Gaga’s courting of the gay audience might be a hard-nosed ploy. Perhaps she knows Gaga’s got plenty of ground there anyway, or perhaps she knows Gaga’s still got some way to go and it’s all fair game. After all, my brother still belongs to Kylie.

Whatever could go through Junior’s head, she takes ‘Born This Way’ on its own immediate terms; a fiery, anthemic, infectious jolt. Let’s all do that.

[1] Tinie Tempah, ‘Pass Out’

Tinie Tempah

British rappers. They’re such nice young men, aren’t they? No bitches, hoes and bullet holes for them, no sir. No, they want to spit rhymes about beans on toast, making sure you get a decent feed even when you’re raving in Ibiza, and solving their personal clothes mountain by stashing some at their aunt’s house. I just wonder how often Tinie Tempah visits his aunt – you know, to pick up an outfit he’s just remembered – or whether his threads just gather dust. He’d be as well off handing them over to charity. Maybe that’s a problem for the notorious Difficult Wardrobe Decisions Second Album.

“This is my favourite one,” lies Junior, dashing yesterday’s New Pop Order. Still, she flips out to every on-/off-beat, gamely attempting to pin down Labrinth’s riddims, bumping into the problem we all face: just what is ‘Pass Out’? It’s hip hop, sure, but punctuated by dancehall flavours, smeared with grime and – eventually – exploding into drum’n’bass. That leap into hyperdrive for the final chorus always makes me laugh. It’s the only sane reaction to that kind of balls-out self-assurance. But long before the two-step fallout, ‘Pass Out”s swagger has pulled you in with a hopscotch synth line, a flow peppered with bons mots, and a shameless R&B chorus that kidnaps any lingering waverers.

Bang bang bang, idea after scheme after brainwave, ‘Pass Out’ pushes it all together like Play-Doh, stuffs it in a press and squeezes it out again through a best-single-of-the-year-shaped hole. “It sounds like Batman,” is Junior’s final revelation and while I’ve no clue what she means, I know she’s right.