What i've been listening to...

Ahoy November! The days are getting darker and the leaves soggier and my converse browner, 2015 is getting sleeeepy...Things are starting to get all nostalgic and broody, this is the best time of the year. You get to watch old horror movies, eat soup, and lose yourself in really really long songs about wizards and space. Sian and i have been cosying up with sweetmilk, angel cards, and Ghost Hunters. It's lovely right here, right now. Here are a few things i've had on my walkman this week...

Stoneground Words by Melanie

(1972)

From the album of the same name, which has just been reissued...i've loved Melanie ever since i was a pup, my Dad had the Candles In The Rain record, which i still have and hold dear, but Stoneground Words is a truly beautiful, powerful, great album that captures that whole back-to-the-earth, self-exploration of the early 70's, and i can't get enough of it right now.

It Brings A Tear by Audience

(1970)

This gorgeous flutey goodness is off the Friend's Friend's Friends album, their second. Audience are definitely an underrated band, and this song is a deep mossy green delight.

La Serie Dei Numeri by Angelo Branduardi

(1977)

I've just discovered Branduardi, and i gotta say, i am blown away by this dude, and not just because of his massive hair. This song is originally from the 1976 album Alla Fiera Dell'Est, which is absolutely my favourite Italian album of all time right now. So, this song translates as something like The Series of Numbers, unfortch i couldn't tell you what it's all about because gosh it's quite esoteric and mystical, but this live version is a total gem isn't it! Branduardi specialised in an almost Medieval canticle style, and in parts he reminds me of The Incredible String Band. This guy was clearly off the charts genius.   

Pillars Of The Sky by Mondo Drag

(2015)

I am loving Mondo Drag! This instrumental from their self-titled album is a dreamy psych beaut, which puts you somewhere in the middle of a vast kaleidoscopic desert on some distant planet. The album is a brilliant organ-heavy proggy riff-fest, kinda Deep Purpley, with enough hooks, imagination and ace musicianship to keep ya titillated through your entire acid trip, or *cough* your nice warm tea under a crochet blanket trip.

What i've been listening to...

Joanna Newsom

Sapokanikan (2015)

Joanna Newsom has a new album coming out this year so therefore this year is a special year and something magical is about to happen. And this lovely song.  It feels like it's been around forever doesn't it, like it's someone we knew once and have forgotten and we can listen to it and just say hello, i've missed you.   

Paul Revere & The Raiders

Revolution! (1967)

Paul Revere & The Raiders made wonderfully upbeat, catchy, discreetly intelligent garagey-pop music, every bit as good as The Monkees.  I've been listening to Revolution! a lot this week, and it keeps giving.  So much pop-smarts, personality, a dash of studio trickery, 1967 was golden, and if wasn't for that hilariously bad cover photo this album might've stood more chance of being taken seriously.  Oh, and 1968's Something Happening also has a rubbish cover, is more overtly psychedelic, and EVEN BETTER (despite what everyone says). 

John Howard

I Got My Lady (1975)

Gaaargh it's tooo catchy!!!  I bin singing this quietly to myself forever.  This is off the album Can You Hear Me OK?  Which is ace, obvs.  John Howard is a total champ.

Reg King
I'm all over Reg King's post-Action solo stuff at the moment.  Whatta dude.  Also, the Rolled Gold demos, from the scrapped last album by The Action, are unbelievably great and totally stand up on their own.  Reg had a very Small Faces-y mod-goes-white-soul voice and wrote brilliant songs that are perfect for that autumny dusky hour when you get your buzz on.  Looking For A Dream and his eponymous 1971 album are both brilliant.

Marie Laforet
Ivan, Boris et Moi (live 1969)
This. 

  

SPURNED CLASSIC! Songs by Paul Parrish

Paul Parrish

Songs

(1971)

Paul Parrish is one of those singers who maybe did too few albums, didn't have enough mystique and maybe just got unlucky and has been scattered in the wind ever since. Until recently, cos they've finally put some of his early stuff out on cd, and it is GREAT.  His first album The Forest Of My Mind (1968) is a gorgeous slab of soft-psych folk-rock reminiscent of Sunshine Superman-era Donovan, full of flutes, harpsichords, flower-power anthems, and period charm (you might find it a little saccharine, personally i love saccharine keep it coming) - so go buy, it's really good. 

Songs came out in 1971 and is, again, a total product of its time. A mostly piano-led singer-songwriter album, everything kept simple (title included) and sparse and heartfelt, with the odd McCartneyesque bit of piano pop but mostly a bunch of introspective and lovely little ditties you can hum along to. Again, i have to stipulate that this is an album with song titles like A Poem I Wrote For Your Hair and I Once Had A Dog, all sung completely earnestly, so you might wanna use your safe word before subjecting yourself to this if you have trouble with that kinda thing. It might be a personal failing, but I can take a harsh pounding of this kind of post-60's hippie melancholy like a champ.

Nice huh. Apart from that bit where that guy chips in ('Ed Venezuela?'). I'm sure at some point at school i wrote a poem about someone's hair. It sounds like something i would do. So I just went for a walk and listened to Songs on my ultra millenium-denial discman, and (apart from all the skipping due to aforementioned shitty discman) it sounded pretty as heck in the sunshine walking around Pontcanna. I guess there's not much more to say about it than that. It's a shame so much great music gets lost over time, or falls in and out of fashion, it all seems kinda arbitrary. Here's one that deserves to be salvaged, and hopefully with its recent reissue, might well find its place in some of our hearts.  

What I've been listening to..

Carrie & Lowell by Sufjan Stevens (2015)

I've got total faith in Sufjan. Illinoise is one of the great albums of the last few decades and despite not loving his last couple of albums the guy's a wizard, we should just let him do his hocus. Carrie & Lowell is stripped down, meticulous and full of revelation. Pretty extraordinary. I keep going back to it.  

Blood Rushing by Josephine Foster (2012)

This is from the album Blood Rushing, which i just bought. Josephine Foster is just so fascinating. She reminds me of Eva Green a little, because she scares me. She has that same oddly alluring, shamanic intensity. The album is supposedly inspired by ancient Pueblo tribes, and here she seems to be inhabiting some kind of spirit alter-ego, Blushing. Gosh, so great.

Shallow Water by Electric Citizen (2014)

Witchy, mellotron-heavy Sabbath-y ROCK. This gem is from the album Sateen, which if you're into Fifty Foot Hose, Jefferson Airplane, Julian's Treatment, or contemporary stuff like Blood Ceremony and Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats, you should pick up, stat.

Nikkie Lane

Loving Nikki Lane this month! Both her albums (Walk of Shame and All or Nothin') have been on a continuous rotation on my cd walkman, with all their sassy, trailer-trashy, phil-spector-y charm. Yee-haw. 

Already There by Verve (1993)

Remember when Verve were great!? On occasion I go back to the Storm In Heaven-era stuff in all its methadone-shoegaze glory and reminisce. It's just so wide-eyed and oceanic. At school I had 'Already There' scrawled on the inside of my Humanities notebook, and I was. (You've been walking round like you're some kind of angel/hello, high, are you? yes. well, that explains it.)

SPURNED CLASSIC! - Down In L.A. by Brewer & Shipley

Brewer & Shipley

Down In L.A.

(1968)

A young girl sleeps 
and her dreams are laced with silver...

First off, sweet genius that's a magnificent cover isn't it...Mmm green and yellow...I really love this album. This is the sound of the West Coast in that great transitional year of 1968. Things haven't gotten too rural yet (these dudes probably had moustaches not beards), but in the aftermath of psychedelia something irrevocable has happened, the mystical has become implicit in the everyday, so even when you think you're just hearing these kinda traditional, simple harmony-laden folky songs, there's something about them that just feels different. The harmonies are delightful, the songs elegant and organic; acoustic guitars, a tinkle of harpsichord, wind chimes, some subtle orchestration and softly crashing cymbals, close your eyes and you're in Laurel Canyon with the sun in your eyes and the breeze in your fur. This is B&S's debut album, and I wish someone would reissue their 2nd and 3rd albums stat (Weeds and Tarkio?) as I bet they're all kinds of good too. Listen to Green Bamboo, it's great isn't it? You can totally imagine Peter Fonda listening to it by his pool, loving life. Down In L.A. captures that moment in time beautifully, folk-rock turning into roots-rock, kinda Byrdsy, kinda Buffalo Springfield, it is consistently brilliant. Before long things would get heavier, lengthier, or just more deep south, the whiff of the FSM marches and the coffee houses would be well and truly redundant, but you can still hear them a little here. It's a fugitive moment, but this album puts you right there.  

Now we beat on the drum
Aquarian dancers come...

Green Bamboo

SPURNED CLASSIC! - Apprentice (In A Musical Workshop) by Dave Loggins (1974)

Dave Loggins
Apprentice (In a Musical Workshop)
1974

I recently picked up this Dave Loggins 3-fer on BGO Records, and so far i haven't been able to get past the first album. Apprentice has to be my fave slice of Seventies singer-songwriter-soft-rock splendour since Dan Fogelberg's Souvenirs. It makes me feel warm and good, which is nice as our heater's broken down. This is exactly the kind of tragically overlooked, irredeemably un-hip, true pumpkin-puree sound of the Seventies which i like to imagine piping out of a truck on the L.A freeway or some place with a lovely macrame owl.

A macrame owl

Who is Dave Loggins? I'm not sure. But let me tell you something, he is the shit. Apprentice is sincere and soulful, and there's not even an obligatory rocker so you don't have to skip any tracks, they're all wonderful and they're all soft around the edges. Please Come To Boston was a smash hit, obvs i'd never heard it before. I wish this kind of thing didn't get dismissed so much, where's the respect for Bread, America, Kiki Dee, Clifford T. Ward, Jimmie Spheeris?

Dave Loggins really wants you to go to Boston...

In honour of all these Seventies MOR greats (and because beards are so over) i've shaved my beard and gone full-Glenn Frey with my very own extra-sleazy moustache. There it is.

Honouring the greats

What I've been listening to...

Jessica Pratt

Mystic bedsit baroque folk, I'm loving her more than is appropriate.
Listen to: Half Twain The Jesse

Sturgill Simpson

Hell yeahs. Sounds kinda like Waylon Jennings. Sometimes he sounds like Waylon Jennings having a major cosmic epiphany, but y'know in a cheap motel room or something country.
Listen to: Turtles (All The Way Down)

Mayonnaise by The Woolen Men

This song's been stuck in my head all week, fucker's catchier than syphilis.

Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats

Biker-psych heaviosity, they are so great it makes me want to puke.
Listen to: Death's Door

Lana Del Fucking Rey
If her mindblowing Kerouacian intro and accompanying video to Ride doesn't make you weep you're a dick.
Listen to: Ride

Hall of Mirrors by Vum

Loving this song right now. A dark psychedelic L.A soundscape, 

a bit hypnotic and woozy. Don't know anything about this band, derp.

Matching Mole - O Caroline

Robert Wyatt, post-Soft Machine (Machine Molle in French...) wrote this with Dave Sinclair from Caravan - absolute legends the both of them.  We used to listen to this a lot in my mate's camper, which was knackered and permanently parked at the end of his road, and was the scene of more bonhomie and madcap experimentalism than a school night usually warranted. If the mood's just right though, if it's grey and drizzly out, and you're feeling a little nostalgic, then this song will rise through the years and the rainsoaked weeds and the taste of TUC biscuits, cigarettes, cornershop wine, chewing gum, and there you'll be, 16 years old, wishing you knew a girl named Caroline.

Laurence Vanay

If, like me, you sometimes like to pretend it's the Seventies and you're in space then you should get ready to fall in love with Laurence Vanay.  Her first two albums have just been reissued on Light In The Attic. http://lightintheattic.net/artists/602-laurence-vanay