Audio Journal : 26/04/2010

This isn't the piece I was intending to publish this week; that piece – on the new albums from David Byrne / Fatboy Slim and Rufus Wainwright – will have to wait.

Instead, here are some selections from Mrs S's iPhone which formed the soundtrack to our driving around the UK last week following the cancellation of our Portugal holiday. I have no control over the contents of her iPhone, just for the record, and, as you will see, increasingly neither does she.

Noah And The Whale The First Days Of Spring



'What's this?' I barked, on the way down the M1 to London, frustrated at the plodding, quiet songs I was hearing and which were affecting my concentration at the wheel. Three dreary songs in, with the added sound of two toddlers hollering at one another in the back, it had been turned off. I hope that's all I get to hear of it.

Devendra Banhart What Will We Be

More than anything else – apart from the collection of downloaded odds and ends in the playlist called The A List – this was the soundtrack to the second leg of our staycation. A breezy collection of whimsical folksy / oddball songs with Latin embellishments, this album continues in the vein of earlier Banhart albums, bound together by his unique vocal style. Paul Rees, Q's editor, says this is the first album where you don't want to punch Banhart in the face; I find this amusing, as, despite being a pacifist, I'd be quite up for punching Paul Rees in the chops.

Lawrence Arabia Chant Darling

When I saw this getting purchased from iTunes, I figured it would be some turgid indie garbage on the name of the band alone. It smacked of barrel-scraping in the 'what shall we call ourselves?' stakes, and of course I was proven wrong. We didn't listen to it often enough for it to leave a lasting impression on me, but the track 'Apple Pie Bed' could well become my personal soundtrack to the summer of '10. Judging by how my almost-four-year old eldest daughter would spontaneously burst into a rendition of the unbelievably chipper chorus ('Apple pie bed / When my body's made of lead') during quiet points on the holiday, it passes the toddler test for catchiness too.

Mrs S's A-List

Listening to albums in the car is something we rarely do apart from on holidays or long journeys. Usually we'll listen to whatever odd tracks Mrs S has read about or heard on 6 Music, usually until she buys something new or just goes off the songs. The A-List, as she named it years ago, at least this time around, included the aforementioned Lawrence Arabia song, some stuff by The Cars, Chew Lips, The Knife, The Crookes, Sunshine Underground (too Killers for me), MGMT's sublime 'Flash Delirium', a newly-discovered Hendrix track and others.

Whilst I find listening to a bunch of songs I don't know by artists I've never heard of pretty enjoyable, I usually don't have much of a say over what goes into the playlist (The Knife's 'Heartbeats' and the two Cars songs were squirrelled in by me), and as I alluded at the start of this, neither does Mrs S these days.

The reason is that almost-four-year-old Daughter#1 who has developed an early passion for upbeat, electronic-y poppy tracks which would never have graced Mrs S's iPhone in a million years. Thus we found ourselves smiling to ourselves as she and her little sister sang along to the likes of 'Just Dance' and 'Poker Face' by Lady Gaga and 'The Boy Does Nothing' by Alesha Dixon. Parentally heart-melting stuff indeed, but from this seed of compromise will grow a tree that can only lead to that A-List getting more and more poptastic over the next few years.

Vinyl Corner

'Daddy, what are records?'

Nuff said.

Audio Journal : 05/04/2010

Go to: My Other Blog :: Documentary Evidence :: twitter.com/mjasmith

Two albums have dominated my listening this past fortnight. The first is Goldfrapp's Head First, which was released a couple of Mondays ago. A neat antidote to the already bland synth-pop-with-girls of La Roux, Little Boots et al, Head First finds the duo of Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory kicking the younger upstarts into touch with a shimmering collection of mostly upbeat pop tracks eschewing the early Eighties leanings of most retro popsters in favour of the late decade digital-analogue blend as perfected by the likes of Erasure. A full review can be found here.

The other album is Complete Greatest Hits by The Cars. Until about a month ago my knowledge of this Boston, MA band was limited to the track 'Drive', used heavily by Bob Geldoff during Live Aid clips; it's not a bad song, but it suffers from over-exposure, plus it provides few clues to the much better material elsewhere in their back catalogue.

The Cars were described as being a blend of punk's minimalism, art rock and Fifties rockabilly riffery; for me, it's the big Eighties keyboard sound and the clipped, funk-esque guitar riffs both of which bring to mind the work of their fellow alternative / college radio luminaries Talking Heads. Tracks such as 'Best Friend's Girl', 'Let's Go' and 'Good Times Roll' are stand-out songs on this twenty-track compilation, and I'll definitely be delving into their albums proper soon.

Let it be known that I am not a fan of The Beatles. I bought The Beatles (aka The White Album) for its avant-gardist leanings and wasn't disappointed, but apart from the odd poppy song here and there, I'm just not a fan. Mrs S, introduced to their music by her father, is a fan and has – time after time – scolded me for my repeated question 'So, is this John singing or Paul?'. I do, however, enjoy their music on a Sunday. Don't ask me why.



Imagine this: listening to every Beatles album, sequentially, in one sitting. Nothing would send me insane quicker, but there is a solution. Avant garde soundsmith Steve McLaughlin, for his piece Run For Your Life, sped up every song by 800% and combined them together into one hour-long track. What's surprising is how, even at this speed, you're able to identify recognisable sections of tracks. 'A Day In The Life', for example, retains much of its drama despite losing any sense of subtlety. The early tracks, all speed and rock 'n roll energy, zip by in a messy amphetamine blur, while the more interesting stuff (from Revolver onwards) – where speed was sacrificed in favour of a more considered sonic template – make for interesting listening at this high velocity. Strangely enough, it's still the McCartney tracks that grate. As with the plunderphonic work of John Oswald, it's not exactly easy listening (but to me, listening to The Beatles at the regular speed isn't either). Judge for yourself by downloading the track from the Ubuweb archive here.

Vinyl Corner

More Eighties pop this week, this time from Howard Jones; Jones was famous for using 'keytars' and for having enormous hair, even by Eighties standards – as evidenced on the sleeve to 'What Is Love?'.

'What Is Love?' was arguably Jones's biggest hit in a career which spanned both sides of the Atlantic. Wikipedia states that his sound was an appealing mix of New Wave and Sixties hippiness – I don't hear that on this track; instead you get some ruminative psychological musings on the meaning of love (a popular theme among New Romantics, naturally) and a big Eighties sound dominated by Fairlight horns and springy bass synths. In one of my earlier websites, during one of my 'charity shop round-ups' of records I'd bought from local Colchester thrift stores that week, I remember being quite disparaging of this song and Jones generally. Looking back I don't honestly know why, as I think this is a really good track.

The B-side on the other hand ('It Just Doesn't Matter'), is rubbish.