Author: tomrainbow

Having just endured the worst (unless you’re a duck!) winter since time began – endless rain and punishing storms interspersed by spells of mild, dreary dampness – music has become the antidote. Xmas and beyond was salvaged by the bright iridescent hues of the eponymous John Wizards album which in turn passed on the musical baton in early February to what has become an almost obsessive re-appraisal of Real Estate’s second album, Days.

I find myself surprised and a little coy at the depth of my feelings for this record – a record by a band with a frankly awful name; a record which itself has a pretty uninspiring name; a record that sounds as out of touch with the zeitgeist as The Grateful Dead did in 1977; a record so polite and edgeless that if you took it home to meet your mother, she would be signing the adoption papers before the end of side one. Indeed, I almost didn’t buy it all, convinced as I was that the last thing I needed at the time was more jingly jangly indie pop fodder (I had already bought Real Estate’s first album which I found to be annoyingly inconsistent and ultimately somewhat underwhelming). However, a combination of a good showing in the 2011 end of year lists, a very effusive shop vendor and a paucity of other possibilities convinced me that Days was worth a chance.

So I bought it and liked it well enough from the get go. It has always been one of those albums that has been an easy choice. As soon as first track, the appropriately named Easy, hits its straps I know the next 40 minutes are going to be enjoyable, relaxing and comforting. And that’s just what the doctor has ordered of late.

I’m not quite sure what it is that Real Estate do so well which, perhaps, latter day Shins don’t, as the differences between the sounds of the two groups are not all that marked. But there is something there! On the face of it this is a very conventional and undemanding record – ten songs, five on each side, sprightly guitars, great playing, a singer with an unremarkable but pleasant enough voice, lyrics that just sort of float by. For the first year or two, it was the melodies that I was drawn to and they’re great, but that in itself is not enough to explain why Days is so revered. So for a (long) while I was very happy to spend time with the record without really ‘getting’ it.

However, as my attention towards the record deepened this Spring I began to appreciate aspects of Days that I had previously overlooked – particularly the atmospheres of the songs which are imbued with a melencholia that floats through the album with the lightest of touches. I now find it almost impossible to listen to Days and not create an image in my mind of the sun setting over a millpond sea at the end of a perfect day. And that’s a pretty good place to be taken to as the horizontal rain lashes against the windows and the fences in the back garden give up their fight against gravity as yet another Winter storm threatens to extinguish the smouldering embers of our last hopes and dreams.

Rob listened: Wow. I skim read Tom’s piece and thought he’d decided to review that Sunn O))) record again.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time with this record since it came out, most of it only half engaged, but it’s something I reach for time and time again. I couldn’t tell you whether there is hidden melancholy. Come to think of it, i’m not sure I could tell you a single lyric from the whole album, despite having played it dozens of times. But it’s extremely pleasant, both in and of itself and as an evocation of lots of the music I used to wallow in during the late eighties. It feels almost deliberately formulated never to change anyone’s life, but there’s nothing wrong with that, and who knows? Perhaps it’s sneaking up on me as I type.

Nick listened: Oh, jangle-pop. I think someone once told me that The Stone Roses’ first album was jangle-pop. It’s not, even if some bits of it bore some vague relation to jangle-pop. (And “Sally Cinnamon” was about 50% jangle-pop, way back when.) So I’ve always been disappointed by jangle-pop, because the bits of The Stone Roses that I liked were the bits they nicked off Simon & Garfunkel or funk or Led Zeppelin or The Clash, it seems. Anyway, this was nice enough, in a jangle-pop way. It reminded me a little bit of late-period Teenage Fanclub, when the Neil Young solos and post-grunge noise had given way to lovely harmonies as far as the eye could see, and they sounded like I image morphine feels when you’ve had a kidney removed.

Graham listened: Completely washed over me in the very nicest of ways. I would have to find the right time and place to properly savour that feeling again but Tom has promised to give me a glass of cold white wine on the beach soon, and we’ll dig our toes in the sand and watch the sun go down together.

After 60 rounds I thought it was time for a change. The idea was to bring songs from albums that you had no intention of playing either because they were inconsistent in quality or too long. Many has been the time that I have reached for a long lost but cherished record in order to check it out for DRC purposes only to discover that what I thought was unparalleled magnificence actually amounts to a couple of killer tracks, a bunch of OK stuff and a clunker or two.

In the event I played 6 songs from albums that are way too long to come in under our 1 hour limit; three from albums I wouldn’t bring because they are only sporadically brilliant, two from albums I like all the way through but don’t think I’ll play at record club and one ‘joker’ for which I was allowed to bend the rules (thank you, oh gracious leader) from an album I have wanted to play ever since we started the club but seriously overuns. Let’s just say that I was well and truly Jelloed by this point and couldn’t bear to miss the opportunity.

Here they are:

Song 1: Red House Painters – Katy Song (from Red House Painters (Rollercoaster))

The only Red House Painters’ album I own is a bit of a curiosity – two near faultless sides of vinyl (1 and 3) and two others that, to my mind, are each marred by harrowing and a tad indulgent 10 minute long dirges. So whilst the highs are very very high indeed, the lows stop Rollercoaster from being the classic it so nearly is. Although I love Grace Cathedral Park, Mistress (both versions), Dragonflies, Down Through and New Jersey it’s always been Katy Song that takes the breath away. Rarely has melancholia been rendered so sweet yet Mark Kozalek manages to maintain a heroic resolution throughout the song’s 8 minutes ensuring that it never strays into self-pitying singer songwriter nonsense. Exquisite.

Rob listened: Beautiful. I have even worse tunnel vision than Tom when it comes to this, one of the 3 Red House Painters albums I own and probably the one I know least well. Because I can never get past ‘Katy Song’. I barely know the rest of the album. There’s something utterly beguiling about Mark Kozelek’s approach and delivery which circumvents the easy jibes you could throw his way. His songs, like his voice, are trapped as if in thick honey, sitting in front of you almost stationary but progressing, forming something. ‘Katy Song’ is never less than intoxicating.

Nick listened: Never heard this before, but it was lovely, and I shall be seeking it out to listen to again.

Graham listened: As Tom’s choices all followed Jello, there was a fair degree of ‘light and shade’ going on each time Tom played a track. I recall relaxing and enjoying this track.

Song 2: Tim Buckley – The Earth is Broken (from the Dream Letter compilation)

When I started collecting music more seriously during my time at university, it seemed as though Tim Buckley’s star shone brightly out of every corner of the music press. Each week interviews or album reviews mentioned Buckley’s music, especially (no doubt helped by This Mortal Coil’s go at Song to the Siren – more on this to come!) the album Starsailor. So when Dream Letter was released I immediately purchased it, excited by the prospect of what lay within.

Well…it was certainly good value for money housing, as it does, almost 2 hours of folk songs, polite applause and (very) plummy introductions. But the trouble is that Buckley, at times, seems to find it impossible to rein himself in and, curiously, when his amazing voice goes too big it loses its power to astonish and just becomes a bit of a chore. However, about 2/3 of the album is great and although Buzzin’ Fly is pretty much undeniable, the intimacy and the vocal gymnastics of The Earth is Broken is as astonishing as the title of the song is prescient.

Rob listened: We’ve discussed the pre-punk 70s before. As well you know, they did not exist for me until a time when Tim Buckley’s records were breathtakingly unavailable, a time after I’d been badly scarred by the death of his prodigiously talented son. So, apart from the odd snatch here and there, this is the first time i’ve sat down and listened to one of his songs. It was lovely. There’s something mesmerising about one person simultaneously exerting bewildering control over a guitar and a voice, and like John Martyn and Joni Mitchell, who I’d like to blithely assume were his great mates, Tim Buckley clearly has the magic.

Nick listened: I remember once bonding with some old guys in a pub who were deep in conversation about the album this is from. This ins’t one of the tunes I remember the most (I’ve not listened to it in a dozen years, probably), but it’s pretty gob-smacking as a performance document front-to-back, and this was lovely to hear again after so long.

Graham listened: Enjoyed listening to this and left DRC far more up to speed on Mr Buckley than when I arrived.

Song 3: Joanna Newsom – Good Intentions Paving Co (from Have One On Me)

Question: How can an album of 124 (!) minutes length be amazing from front to back?

Answer: It Can’t!

We talked a lot about this on the night (well for about the seven minutes that the song was playing) but, for me, Newsom could have had a stone cold classic on her hands if someone had been around to tell her to ditch about half the material from Have One On Me. There are some songs on this album that are tedious beyond belief. There is also music as incredible as anything I’ve ever heard. Good Intentions Paving Company falls squarely into the latter category, a complex beast that works perfectly as it segues through its many guises but, crucially, remains compelling and downright beautiful throughout its stay. An incredible song – please can we have more of this sort of thing on the new album Joanna?

Rob listened: Tom may be technically correct, but the way he phrased this question on the night was ‘Can a triple album ever be amazing front to back?’ The answer to this slightly different question is of course ‘Yes’ as we refer you to ‘The Seer’ by Swans. I’d argue that last year’s Knife album had a pretty good go too although ‘Shaking the Habitual’ was much more deliberately eclectic and challenging, less apt from listening right through from soup to nuts. Neither were 124 minutes though. so that’s one to you, for the time being. I love Joanna Newsom, and whilst I love ‘Have One On Me’ pretty hard – just the fact of its existence brings a rare smile to my face – I have to confess that I often leap straight to ‘Good Intentions Paving Co.’ It’s a wonderful song, one which at one point i’d convinced myself was a Pynchonesque romp through 200 years of American history, before I lost my grip on it once more, never to be regained. My view is that without the wild, ungraspable variety, Newsom’s moment of pure sweetness would not be so effecting, so I have no problem with the rest of the record, but I was delighted to sit and listen to GIPC all the same.

Nick listened: Love the idea of Joanna Newsom, but seldom listen to her, because, y’know, 17-minute songs about *insert token mention of ‘spelunking monkeys’*. Very glad she exists, etcetera, etcetera.

Graham listened: Bit like Nick, I know she is well regarded etc., but just not for me really.

Song 4: Sufjan Stevens – I Want To Be Well (from The Age Of Adz)

Although (unfairly) maligned by some, Sufjan pulled out all of the stops in 2010 and released an album that, unless I am missing something, is his masterpiece. Gone is the whimsy and meanderings of some of the weaker moments of Michigan and Illinoise, much more ambitious and far-reaching than Seven Swans and not really fey at all, The Age Of Adz is an album to wallow in – as Bobby Gillespie espoused: don’t fight it, feel it! I like all of The Age Of Adz, I don’t really hear any of the flaws that some commentators have suggested are present and I would have liked to have played the album at record club…but it’s 74 minutes long. Luckily, I Want To Be Well distills what the album is about into 6 and a half minutes of sonic exploration, electronic assault, sweet vocals…and invective! Don’t believe the naysayers, this is brilliant music.

Rob listened: I clearly parted company with Sufjan Stevens just at the point where he was off to do more interesting things. I liked ‘Illinoise’ and ‘Michigan’ well enough, although not as much as I was told to, but equally there were things in each that really got my hackles up. This sounded much more opaque and that’s a good thing by my reckoning.

Nick listened: Don’t quite get Sufjan, bar some of his Christmas songs. I own this album and it’s… busy, and opaque. Perhaps more time is needed.

Graham listened: Another unknown for me but really enjoyed this one.

Song 5: Underworld – Dirty Epic (from Dubnobasswithmyheadman)

20+ years on, this album just shouldn’t work. And for a long, long time I assumed it didn’t. But in the last couple years Dubno has been a fairly regular feature on  my turntable, its breezy grooves and indie dance crossover (crucially, always a little bit more dance than indie) landscapes wearing much better than many of Underworld’s contemporaries from this time. Unlike some of the other albums I chose on the night, Dubno holds up pretty well throughout its 74 minutes playing time, the peaks (Hmmm Skyscaper I Love You, Cowgirl, Spoonman, M.E and Dirty Epic) being just that little bit better than the rest. In the end my choice came down to a toss of a coin (actually, I got my nine year old son to choose) between the gargantuan Hmmm Skyscraper and the slightly more colourful and engorged Dirty Epic. But in actuality I could have selected any of the above 5 songs and been equally happy and excited with my choice.

Rob listened: I had a friend at the time who lurched from being a 4AD collecting purist into a rabid Aphex/Warp collector. ‘Dubnobassiwithmyheadman’ was his gateway drug and I thought he’s lost his mind. Even after I’d come around I never quite got with Underworld. There’s something disconnected about them. Neither weird enough to be intriguing or forceful enough to be transportational. Still, this was good to hear after many years and by the time it wound its way to the final couple of minutes it had built up a head of steam behind a sly little melody line.

Nick listened: This album should work, and it does work, and it’s brilliant, and techno full-lengths from the mid-90s are one of my favourite things in the world (and all, pretty much, too long to play at record club). This is brilliant and I love it, etcetera, etcetera.

Graham listened: Underworld are the only band of that genre and era that I have any connection with. This is because ‘born slippy’ mentions Romford, nearby where I was dragged up. Because of the depth of this connection, I feel disqualified from venturing any opinions on this.

Song 6: The Minute Men – It’s Expected I’m Gone (from Double Nickels On The Dime)

I didn’t intend to play this at the start of the evening but a combination of Jello Biafra’s D Boon-like vocals and having a sliver of time left from my 40 minute allocation led me into the murky world of rule breaking . You see, I fully intend to play DNOTD at the club at some point as it’s amazing. But it’s also very very long, hard to grasp on any one of your first 100 listens, exhausting, bewildering, funny and many other adjectives. In a way I wish I had been patient as, in isolation, It’s Expected I’m Gone makes as much sense as a smoked kipper on a ski lift.

Rob listened: I’ve spent time looking for this and never found it and so have avoided catching up with in on Spotify, preferring to be deferring. It was great, everything I would have looked for in a record 20 years ago, punky, shouty, jazzy, wrong and right. Let’s face it, some tastes never change. A winner.

Nick listened: Never heard this before; it wasn’t quite what I expected. Can’t quite remember what it was like though; should have written this up earlier… Think I enjoyed it…

The prospect of our ‘Album of the Year’ meeting for 2013 had been causing me some concern for some time. Come November I had precious few records that I could have realistically taken as my album of the year: Bill Callahan’s Dream River was probably at the top of my pile but we’ve already had our fill of Bill; not that you can ever have too much of him in my opinion, but it shows a certain lack of breadth to have three records by the same artist within the space of three years. And besides, it’s not as good as his previous two solo albums, or his last two (amazing) efforts as Smog. Other albums I have acquired from 2013 have largely been disappointing for me: Parquet Courts is a tired rehash of early Pavement, bafflingly revered for some inexplicable reason; Kurt Vile’s latest is some way off the brilliance of Smoke Ring being overlong and meandering; Phosphorescent’s Muchacho is pleasant enough but hardly album of the year material and John Grant’s Pale Green Ghosts starts off so strongly but peters out in its second half. To my mind the best record I had heard from 2013 was Rob’s Pinkunoizu thing but I could hardly bring that. Then, at the bum end of the year, as the forums began to gear themselves up to listmania (lisztomania?) I struck gold…twice.  One of the two albums I am saving for another meeting so more of that at a later date. The other is John Wizards’ self-tilted debut. Neither album made much (if any) impression on the album of the year lists. I guess I am just becoming ever more out of touch! But for sheer life affirming joyfulness John Wizards takes some beating.

Somewhat surprisingly, given the fact that our tastes share much common ground, my album of the year is kind of the polar opposite of Rob’s emptyset record. Whereas his record is all bright melodies and colour and…oh, hang on, I may have got that the wrong way round! Rob’s album is the absence of music, it’s the sound of what’s left when some alien species has beamed down to Earth and removed everything but heavy machinery. In contrast, John Wizards is crammed to overflowing with music. Ostensibly comprising of 15 ‘songs’, the album sounds more like 200 ideas spewing forth from a very active (ie hyperactive) brain. There’s so much going on on John Wizards’ debut that I find myself worrying about their sophomore effort already…not only will it be hard to match the genius of this album but surely they can’t have all that many ideas left? There are, after all, only so many permutations of notes on a scale and most of them have been used here! So I guess I should just enjoy it while it lasts, something that seems to happen that little bit more with each new listen.

Maybe it’s the mathematician in me, but I love albums like this. Albums which require work, that are like a puzzle, where it takes time just to work out where one song ends and another one starts and then to gradually realise that what sounded at first like a set of disconnected motifs actually do hang together as ‘songs’. Albums like A Wizard A True Star or Alien Lanes or Mark’s Keyboard Repair or, even, Smile which has recently (completely by coincidence) been my album of choice in the car and is slowly revealing its worth despite sounding abysmal during those early plays. But, unlike all of these records, John Wizards sounded glorious on a first listen. A glorious mess. There’s nothing really that jars, the way the songs develop, the movement between sections, is never abrupt and each part of every song could be fleshed out into a 15 minute jam and I would be quite happy to listen to it. And whilst Nick played us some Syrian wedding music that had just a whiff of Western production values detectable, John Wizards’ African roots ground the album in someplace unique but the African influence is subtle and used sparingly so that, whilst at times it sounds a bit like Junior Boys crossed with Ladysmith Black Mambazo at other times it might just sound like Junior Boys. It all adds up to something fresh and, to my mind, unique and highly addictive. The perfect antidote to those emptyset blues!

Rob listened: I spent a fruitless and frustrating couple of minutes this evening trying to describe ‘R Plus 7’ by Oneohtrix Point Never, another of my favourite records of 2013. It’s a dizzying blizzard of a thing, blinking from one stanza to another, apparently teleporting in and out of entirely different tracks. There’s no way on this earth that it should work, but it’s beautiful and moving. To some extent, I could have saved us all the bother had Tom gone first instead of last. I hadn’t heard of John Wizards before tonight, but, crudely put, it’s ‘R Plus 7’ played on real instruments rather than a laptop. Perhaps not quite so deliberate – there are flows and dissolves across the record, but ultimately both artists are getting away with an approach which should spell disaster, at least in part through their energy and attention to delicious detail. I loved it. If this is what a post-internet global music sounds like then for now it sounds pretty good.

To commemorate the 1000th British Number 1 album – the mighty Swings Both Ways by Britain’s finest – Mr Robbie Williams, Rob set the beastly theme of bringing a British Number 1 to Record Club. As my eyes ran down the list on Wikipedia, I became ever more acutely aware of just how much I have avoided the more popular end of the music business over the years – to such an extent that, even including the 10 or so Beatles albums I own (none of which are contenders for Record Club) my grand total languishes around the 3% figure. And of those 30 or so albums, many are by artists that have already been represented in our previous 58 meetings or are albums that have actually been brought already…or are rubbish! Thankfully, The Pretenders’ debut album is tremendous and was a British Number 1 and is by a band that has barely had a sniff of a mention at record club thus far.

Which, for me, is baffling. Not because we haven’t been talking about it at Record Club per se, but because it simply isn’t a record that gets talked about very much at all. The Pretenders seem to inhabit a kind of musical appreciation twilight zone – the singles are liked (but, perhaps, not revered – after all everyone fawns over Fairytale of New York these days, but 2000 Miles is a pretty amazing Xmas song too and barely gets a mention) and the albums are generally disregarded. Indeed, I only bought the debut album a couple of years ago, mainly because I love Brass In Pocket and felt that my collection was incomplete without it. But the album offers so much more than  a couple of well known hits and a bunch of filler.

In fact the first six tracks of The Pretenders may have you thinking that someone at the record factory has slipped in a record by a different band altogether. The album kicks off with the high octane and really pretty nasty Precious (complete with one of the most convincing ‘fuck off’s I’ve ever heard on disc), through the staccato riffage of the exhilarating Tattooed Love Boys and the quite brilliant The Wait (which starts off sounding like the succeeding jangly Stop Your Sobbing but soon takes the listener somewhere much more dark and menacing and unexpected). Fourth track Space Invader is an eye opening instrumental that, considering its name, doesn’t sound dated at all. It’s a surprising start to the career of a band that went on to have a string of pop hits throughout the next decade and reflects a group that is brimful of ideas and punkish energy. The change in The Pretenders’ sound over time must also be partly due to the drug related deaths of two of the original four band members in 1982 – guitarist James Honeyman-Scott and bass player Pete Farndon. Perhaps they were the grit in The Pretenders’ oyster from which the subsequent pop pearls were formed.

Certainly, the band The Pretenders were to become can be much more clearly heard on the second side of the album – maybe this was where Chrissie Hynde was allowed to flex her song-writing muscles more fully – the compromise to side one’s bluster. As soon as the initial twangy guitar of Kid’s initial motif kicks off it is clear that The Pretenders are much more multi-faceted than the first side of the record suggests. As well as thrilling and raucous, the flip-side of the album shows that sweet and melodious also come easily. And that’s the thing….it all seems so effortless. Kid is a brilliant song in its own right but the fact that it is followed the brooding and smoky Private Life (surely Grace Jones’ most famous song) then the pure pop of the glistening Brass in Pocket and then the St Vincent blueprint of Lover’s of Today makes the variety of side 2 almost as unexpected as the hard-hitting nature of side 1. But The Pretenders see fit to round things off with a return to where they kicked things off. Mystery Achievement is a classic rocker and a fine and (unsurprisingly) unusual way to end an album.

For all its lack of convention (the sequencing, the swearing, the lack of a unified sound), The Pretenders works brilliantly and just goes to show that sometimes the music that rises to the top of the charts can also be challenging, unpredictable…and absolutely magnificent. Just need to go and check out those other 970 possibilities now! Maybe Celine Dion ain’t all that bad after all.

Rob listened: It was great to hear this for the first time. What a strange band The Pretenders were, or at least how strange they seemed then, when I was 8, and how oddly they fit into the pop landscape in hindsight. This record bristled and hustled and combined pop punk sheen with Chrissie Hynde’s uniquely cool tension. Loads to love about it. I’ll be keeping an eye on the second hand racks.

Graham Listened: Really odd that I have never listened to this album, or in fact any whole Pretenders album. Always liked the sound but never felt need to investigate further. Really an album of 2 halves, but each are cracking.

Purchasing and consuming music is a funny business. Every time we turn on the radio, reach for an album on the shelf or go into a record shop, we are faced with a myriad choices that we almost immediately sift through, usually coming to a remarkably rapid decision.  For me, when acquiring new music the rapidity of the decision hinges on three things – knowledge, ignorance and assumption. Direct knowledge is the quickest method – I know the album, or artist and am able to make a decision based on what I already know. It’s also, for me, the most boring approach to acquiring music and has often led to my most disappointing purchases. Hence my avoidance of Spotify. Too much knowledge dulls the initial thrill I feel as the needle inexorably spirals towards the first notes of album I have never heard before. But a little knowledge heightens the anticipation and so I usually read and listen to other’s points of view prior to looking for new music. If I am entirely ignorant, I will usually dismiss the album without a second thought. But often I make assumptions about a record or an artist or even an entire genre that has meant that numerous wonderful records have passed me by for many years before I have eventually given them a proper chance – The Smiths, Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Steve McQueen by Prefab Sprout to name but a few.

I have always loved the great soul singles of the late sixties and early seventies – O’Jays, Aretha, Isley Brothers, Marvin Gaye – but I always assumed that (with the exception of Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye) their albums would be full of lesser fare bar a few jewels, that had invariably become ubiquitous as singles anyway. So I pretty much avoided the genre because I have always wanted to own albums rather than compilations and I always thought that these albums would ultimately be disappointing due to the amount of second rate filler they would inevitably contain. But then Nick played Isaac Hayes’ Hot Buttered Soul at record club. The consistently high quality of the music throughout that album made me reassess and, almost straight away, I was browsing sections of the record shop that I wouldn’t normally have considered going to. Soon I was excitedly clutching a copy of Al Green’s magnificent fifth album, rushing home whilst wondering what delights my needle would unearth once it began to work its magic.

Needless to say, I’m Still In Love With You is wonderful throughout – from the astonishing vocal gymnastics of the opening title track, through to the astonishing vocal gymnastics of the final track, One of These Good Old Days (featuring the legendary lyrics – ‘George Mitchell’s Minstrels, Elvis Presley, George Mitchell’s Minstrels, South Pacific, Elvis Presley, George Mitchell’s Minstrels, South Pacific’ etc etc ad infinitum….oh no, my mistake, that was Nick ‘researching’ his choice for the next meeting over the top of the last quarter of the record!). I find that when listened to in a room where ‘research’ is not being conducted, I’m Still In Love With You sounds even better!

But between start and finish Al Green traverses nine tracks of impeccable quality from the smouldering Love and Happiness, through the claustrophobic Simply Beautiful and his forlorn and yearning cover of Kris Kristofferson’s For The Good Times. Although some tracks stand out more than others, there really aren’t any duffers – a true ***** album in my book and a great first chapter on my journey into the treasure trove of 20th century soul music.

Rob listened: It seems sensible to accept that taste has to be subjective. Equally, there are some things which it seems sensible for us all to agree are undeniably fantastic. Here’s one of them. Listen to Al Green spin his voice out like a filament of blown glass and if you’re not ready to lie down and weep at the sheer beauty of the sound (or hey! stand up and cheer if you prefer! i’m open to new approaches), you’re from another planet.

Nick listened: I’m an asshole for shouting over this, even if it was educational shouting. Al Green is great; I only have a ‘best of’ rather than any studio albums. What I already knew of this was still magnificent, what I didn’t know already was very good on first exposure. His voice is like honey and gossamer at the same time. There’s not a lot else to say; it’s just a pleasure to listen to.

Graham listened: While most of the time his voice has healing powers, now and again I’m not totally overwhelmed. Booking my flight to Mars.

Over the course of the last decade, Bill Callahan has slowly but surely worked his way right up to the very top of my skewed American indie singer songwriter pile (a pile that is actually more populated than one might think). As each subsequent Bill Callahan or Smog release has slow-burned its way into my affection, my love for Mr Callahan’s oeuvre has deepened. Since the recent release of Dream River, that despite being a fine enough LP hasn’t yet clicked with me in the way that the previous album Apocalypse did, my obsessions have deviated to three of Bill’s earlier Smog releases – the subtly great latter day Smog album, Supper, the amusingly titled and particularly varied and sprawling Dongs of Sevotion and, possibly greatest of all, 1999’s imperious Knock Knock, an album that is as close to perfection as a skewed American singer songwriter can get. So whilst I was less than enamoured upon pulling out 1999 and 1992 from the hat of delight/doom – 1999 being previously plundered for one of Nick’s themes, 1992 being a fallow year for me due to doing the ‘finding oneself’ thing in Australia at the time – I became increasingly happy with my choice of album over the course of the fortnight leading up to record club night as each subsequent play revealed a little more depth, warmth and beauty to a record that I already regarded as one of the best.

But just what it is that makes Knock Knock so great is hard to pin down (as I am about to demonstrate). On paper Knock Knock sounds less than edifying. Four electric guitar tracks that chug along nicely but where not a lot happens – Held, No Dancing, Cold Blooded Old Times and Hit The Ground Running. Five acoustic tracks where even less happens, ending in the barely there Left Only With Love..and the opening (vaguely) Laurie Andersonesque Let’s Move to The Country, in which nothing much happens in a slightly more off-kilter way. So to conclude…unless you’re a fan of William Basinski, in which case the album is all over the place…not a lot happens! But this album’s all about subtlety, nuance, wit and poise. A study in the ‘less is more’ approach to music making. Whilst the aforementioned electric tracks provide the hooks it’s the quieter tracks that offer the breathtakingly beautiful moments that come along every so often in the Bill Callahan discography. River Guard, Sweet Treat, I Could Drive Forever and, to cap it all, the exquisite Teenage Spaceship repay rapt attention and a quiet room; initially they were the tracks I was least interested in. Now, I listen in spellbound attention as they meander through their (lack of) paces marvelling at Callahan’s ability to say so much through so little, both musically and lyrically.

For those of you who only know Bill Callahan through his later self-titled work, Knock Knock may seem a spartan and more left-field affair than they are used to. Callahan has become such a refined and sophisticated writer in recent times that the rawer earlier Smog work can seem like the work of a different artist altogether. But the difference would be made even more stark for anyone who chanced upon Smog in their very early days (when they made Guided By Voices seem positively Hi-Fi) and had then given up on them. Because by Knock Knock, Callahan had worked out his strengths (and, importantly teamed up with US indie superman Jim O’Rourke) and was well on the way to documenting what has gone on to become one of the most vital, vibrant and astonishing chapters in the great American songbook. And within that chapter, Knock Knock more than holds its own as one of the great skewed indie American song writer albums!

Rob listened: I share Tom’s reverence for Bill Callahan. He’s one of the few songwriters who can bring forth pure joy just by doing what he’s doing and doing it so very well. I realise i’m terrible at getting to the root of what makes any artist or record any good, but my take on Callahan is that his deep, resonant voice and his deliberate, deceptively simple approach to writing (how few words has ‘Teenage Spaceship’ and how much redolence of adolescent isolation) tell of self-confidence and inspire a feeling of safety. ‘Yes’, we think, ‘this guy really DOES know what he’s doing’. And we put our trust in him. I spend a lot of time listening to his records (‘Apocalypse’ and ‘Sometime I Wish…’ may be my most reached for records of the last two years) but I don’t spend too much time parsing them. Even after all these years, they are unfolding like gentle mysteries. I feel like we’re growing old together, and I really like that. At this stage I can’t imagine what a Callahan mis-step could possibly sound like. And it’s nice to have someone you can depend upon.

Graham listened: Not often I lie in a bath of warm chocolate, but if I did, I would probably add this to the accompanying playlist. I was really intrigued by its subtlety and although not a huge amount going on, it just washed over nicely. It fitted so well on a night where we indulge in a fair amount of bombastic sounds. Off to see how much Dairy Milk it takes to fill a bath.

Nick listened: I’ve only listened to post-Smog Smog, when Callahan has used his own name, but I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve heard, some of it very, very much. This too; unsurprisingly – it’s the same guy, and produced by Jim O’Rourke, who I really like. “Teenage Spaceship” was especially lovely. This has replaced Rumours on the theoretical list of albums to buy in my head. It sits just below 20 Jazz Funk Greats by Throbbing Gristle.

It was theme night at Devon Record Club and we were excited! Graham’s somewhat bizarre theme of ‘bands that did or did not have hair’ was interpreted by myself and Nick as ‘bands that are from Washington DC, one of which contains the producer of the album by the other’. Obviously, that was what Graham meant when he set the theme and surely Nick and I deserve bonus points for correctly deciphering Graham’s complex coding system. Rob and Graham, whilst undeniably picking bands that either had or did not have hair (although in the case of Gary Numan, maybe not), failed miserably to bring records that fulfilled all aspects of the theme seeing as neither of their choices hailed from the capital of the USA or had members that had even the remotest to do with the production of The Dismemberment Plan’s Emergency & I. Losers!

But even if Graham hadn’t set the theme, For Your Own Special Sweetheart has always been high on my list of albums to bring to Record Club and I may well have brought it to Round 56 anyway. For some inexplicable reason (at least as far as I am concerned) Sweetheart never made much of an impact on its release and I knew that it would be a first time listen for the others. And despite the album taking a few plays to fully appreciate (Nick’s assertion that the songs sound a tad homogenous on first aquaintances being totally valid) I have always found the combination of skillfully written pop songs played with no little skill emanating from the hardcore end of US alt-rock pretty irresistable. Girls vs Boys managed it whilst throwing in a funky groove sex thing, Jawbox is much more straight ahead rock; invariably a pounding, pummelling start to a song evolves into something sweetly melodic and really rather beautiful…similar, I suppose to what Husker Du were doing towards the end of their career but with less tinny production and a musical path that harks back to early REM, Replacements and Buckingham Nicks rather than The Beatles and The Byrds. There’s a directness to Jawbox’s sound that can quickly become addictive and after a few listens individual songs begin to rise out of the homogeny of the album to reveal themselves in all their glory.

Graham stated that he found the first half of Sweetheart much catchier than the second. Maybe so, but I suspect what actually caught his attention was the inital one-two-three sucker punch of the bruising FF=66, the (ironically) sweet Savory and then the buzz saw call and response of Breathe. It’s breathless (!) stuff and a startling way to begin an album. Whenever I put Sweetheart on my turntable, I experience a little thrill of anticipation at what’s to come…and therein lies the problem! After such a supreme start the rest of the album can feel anticlimatic. But with familiarity this turns out to be far from the truth – highlights abound throughout the album and the committed listener is rewarded with such a rich and consistently excellent set of songs that it is remarkable to me that Jawbox are not now mentioned in the same breath as Nirvana, Pixies and Fugazi.

Jawbox went on to release one more (eponymous) album and then, evidently, band leader J.Robbins went on to produce…amongst others, The Dismemberment Plan. And having been given the chance to compare them, Sweetheart and Emergency & I couldn’t be much more different – the latter being varied, full of space and much less noisy. It was evident that the US musical hinterland had changed significantly over the intervening five years between the two respective releases, perhaps echoing the use of computer technology in music production as opposed to good ol’ fashioned blood sweat and tears. Jawbox went on to re-release a re-mastered version of Sweetheart a few years ago and it was received to unanimously glowing reviews, usually along the lines of ‘how did we miss this one first time around?’ Like many of my choices for Record Club, the answer to that question eludes me. My suspicion is that Jawbox themselves are just as mystified as the rest of us!

Nick listened: “Did they have any connections with other bands on the DC scene?” asked Tom, pointedly, as I was introducing Dismemberment Plan. “I dunno, I think the producer was in Jawbox” I replied, and he smirked, knowing what he’d brought along. One of those weird coincidences. There were similarities, I guess, but as Tom pointed out, The Plan’s record is much spacier, much poppier, much less gritty and dirty and underground, than this. Which isn’t to say that I didn’t like this, but after the technicolour of Emergency & I this seemed a little monochrome to me.

Rob listened: I guess I have to refer you to my rather tortured response to ‘Emergency & I’ and then observe that the first 30 seconds of the first track of this Jawbox record, as the metallic bass writhes and squirms and the singer grits his teeth and tries to spit out his words, really reminds me of Circus Lupus, who I really, really loved. It was great hearing this and Dismemberment Plan side by side and, despite the pain it caused me to writhe around once more on the sharp edge of my inarticulacy, I enjoyed trying to figure out what this record had that worked for me that the other one did not. My conclusion? It’s an age thing.  I don’t know how to explain it, but somehow this record seems the right side of my line, where the other one doesn’t. Will that do? Sorry, it’s all i’ve got.

Despite being critically lauded throughout his first decade and a half in the music industry, John Martyn never REALLY caught on. Admittedly he had a sniff of more widespread popularity when his 1973 offering, Solid Air, was released but its success was fleeting and subsequent albums failed to make the same (less then minimal) commercial impact. And, unlike his good friend Nick Drake (for whom the song Solid Air was written), it appears that, at least for the time being, a posthumous resurgence of interest – Martyn died in 2009 at the tender age of 60 – is yet to gather much momentum. Which is a shame, as Martyn’s music has so much to offer.

Martyn started out writing fairly standard folk tinged acoustic guitar fodder but upon being signed to Chris Blackwell’s predominently reggae based Island Records, he quickly developed his sound into a much meatier beast, experimenting with other styles of music and introducing the Echoplex guitar device (which can be heard to great effect on Solid Air’s noisier offerings). The icing on the cake was Martyn’s voice, strong and smoky, soulful and yet somehow capable of doing enraged and vulnerable simulataneously. By the time Martyn was releasing Solid Air the assurance he had in his own song-writing allowed him to play with style and sound to produce records that, in their own way, provide a kind of folky mirror to the mid 70s experimentation of Cale, Eno or Bowie. Martyn was brimful of confidence and was ready to take (on) the World.

But, of course, it couldn’t last. And somewhat predictably it’s the point at which it all begins to fall apart that I am particularly drawn to. Grace and Danger is as raw a record as any I possess. It documents a time of great upheavel in Martyn’s life; alcoholic since the mid 70s, Martyn and wife Beverley were in the process of getting divorced at the time Grace and Danger was recorded. The pain is palpable, especially on the second side of the record – song titles ‘Hurt in Your Heart’, ‘Baby Please Come Home’, ‘Our Love’ and ‘Lookin’ On’ leave little to the imagination as to the song’s lyrical content and their melancholy arrangements, plaintive melodies and Martyn’s devastatingly beautiful (to my ears anyway) vocals leave the listener in no doubt that he was well and truly going through the mill at this time. Martyn’s attempts at lightening the mood on Grace and Danger are unconvincing – although slightly more uptempo, songs like Save Some, Grace and Danger and the reggae inflected Johnny Too Bad are still much closer in atmosphere to Joy Division’s Atmosphere than Russ Abbot’s more upbeat version of the same song.

But whilst Grace and Danger is by no means an easy listen, it’s the sheer beauty of the songs that carry the listener through – for me, Grace and Danger is always a treat, possibly the best record that Phil Collins (I kid you not) ever played on and testament to a talent has never really had the recognition I think he deserves. The time to start the posthumous redressing of the balance is now, people!

Rob listened: I guess I have to disagree with Tom on this being not an easy listen. Far from it, it’s a smooth, mellifluous affair, the slippery 80s stylings squirming away beneath Martyn’s dark voice, the whole thing coming off like a rich yet refined confection. I’ve listened to it six or seven times since our get together, usually in back to back plays, and have yet to get a glimpse of its nasty side. I’m sure the payload is there somewhere but perhaps I have a tin ear when it comes to John Martyn’s lyrics. A painful memory returns to me of my mum, reduced almost to tears by my repeated playing of ‘Solid Air’, wherein ‘May You Never’, a song I had only considered beautiful and sweet, struck her like a knife to the heart, years after my dad had passed away. I thought ‘Grace and Danger’ was magnificent, but for now I’m happy skating on its surface.

Nick listened: It’s a while ago now, and, as Tom said under the Darkside post, William Basinski overshadowed everything else we played by sheer force of ideology and aesthetic and discussion thereof. I own Solid Air, because of the Nick Drake connection, but have only listened to it a couple of times. I remember almost nothing about this, except that it was very pleasant. Bloody Basinski.

In the first rush of musical discovery, epiphanies come thick and fast. For me, the late 80s introduced so much music unlike any I had already known (or even dreamt about existing) that it seemed barely a week went by without some new band or other literally taking my breath away. Hearing Liz Fraser’s voice soaring away in Gobbledegook, being pounded and pummelled by Mudhoney’s sludgefest, Isn’t Anything’s amazing squall of noise, Tom Waits’ gravel gargling tales of parched weirdness – looking back it is hard to know whether it was my age and relative ignorance that made this time so revelatory or maybe there was just loads more inspiration around then.

Whatever, such moments have become increasingly rare for me in recent years. Sure, music still has the ability to astonish and surprise me but, these days, it’s rare that I listen to something that doesn’t elicit the response, ‘this really reminds me of…[insert: Talk Talk, Talking Heads,  Television, Truman’s Water…]’ or, more likely, ‘someone but I can’t think who’. After all, much of what I like to listen to has been made by artists who have been inspired/influenced by artists that I like to listen to. That’s (partly) why I listen to them!

But DRC has helped me broaden my musical vistas, look beyond the norm and taken me out of my comfort zone…often I am listening to artists that have been selected by someone else, and that frequently circumvents the problem outlined in the previous paragraph. It has also led me to a few albums that I would probably have missed in times gone by…New History Warfare Vol. 2 Judges by Colin Stetson is one of those. And while, even after half a year of having the album in my possession, I am still trying to ascertain whether this is an album I love, it is certainly one I admire and respect, not least because Stetson produces a sound so unlike anything I’ve ever come across before (I didn’t really get the SunO))) comparison that Rob suggested on the evening…there we go again, more comparisons…but then I have deliberately tried my hardest to wipe all memories of Sun O))) from my mind). The fact that this revelatory sound is produced by a saxophone, an instrument that has been around for a long time now and has been wrenched through all sorts of paces by Coltrane, Coleman, Adderley, Parker, Marsalis to name but a few, makes this achievement all the more remarkable. From the very first note of Judges – an ominous yet distant held note that sounds something like a fog horn that fades then reappears four or five times until it reaches a deafening volume – it is clear that Stetson is doing something quite unlike anyone else around (at least, to my knowledge). The fact that he manages this whilst still producing a record that is perfectly listenable, even accessible at times, only adds to the achievement. For those of you who find the demands of free jazz too much, fret not. Judges is nothing like, for example, Coltrane’s Meditations or Sun Ra’s Heliocentric Worlds Vol 2 (‘more’s the pity’ I hear the dissenting voices cry). I’ve always found these two albums amongst the most challenging, discordant and unsettling albums I own. Stetson’s effort, however, offers light with the shade; patterns are prevalent and easy to locate, hooks appear every now and then and there is even a torch song (of sorts) in his version of the traditional ‘Lord I Just Can’t Keep From Crying Sometimes’, which features bewitching vocals from My Brightest Diamond’s Shara Worden.

So, whilst I have yet to reach the stage with this album where I can’t help but pull it off the shelf, every time I do, it digs a little deeper into my affections and makes that little bit more sense to me – the hooks sink that little bit deeper and I feel a little bit more admiration for a record that has introduced me to new sounds and forms whilst teetering on (but never falling over) the line that separates music from noise.

Nick listened: Stetson made an appearance at my other record a club a few weeks ago, in the form of his latest record (New History Warfare Volume 3: To See More Light), which I’d been eager to hear. I was so impressed that I picked up a copy at the earliest opportunity, and it took barely five minutes to decide that I was going to do the same with …Judges. The copy I ordered direct from his Canadian record label arrived yesterday, and I’m listening to it again now.

Stetson’s sound is monumental, elemental, and ethereal at the same time. It is spooky and moving and percussive and, somehow, still melodic. He manages to make a saxophone sound like a synthesiser. The resultant music is fascinating and brilliant, and far more enjoyable and accessible than our fumbling descriptions might suggest.

Rob listened: Couldn’t help noticing Stetson in recent end of year lists. I still had no idea what to expect. Tom’s introduction didn’t make things much clearer, except to say that as soon as the sound started, it all made sense. Incredible, in the true sense of the word. Who said there was nothing new under the sun? (Ecclesiastes 1:9 did actually – Ed)

The Archers of Loaf first album, Icky Mettle, was one of a seemingly endless supply of skewed US indie-rock records that were predominant in the mid 90s (a genre that was so prevalent that it was even made into the theme of one of Sebadoh’s more ironic songs). And it suffered for it…at least, as far as I was concerned. Angrier and less arch than Pavement, lacking Guided by Voices’ obtuseness, poppier than Thinking Fellers and Truman’s Water; Archers of Loaf were a kaleidoscope of colour in comparison to Girls vs Boys or Fugazi. Yet it was easy at the time to think that they were just another American band nestling amid the ‘Lo-Fi’ section of your local vinyl outlet. But in contrast to some of their more willful contemporaries, time has been kind to The Archers and the band’s (relatively) straightforward approach to song-writing has, to my mind, worn better than many of those more tricksy recording artists operating at that time.

Listening back all these years on, it is obvious that what at first seems like a set of noisy but basically catchy little pop songs actually masks something much more slippery and complex – like so many of the very best records, there is more to Icky Mettle than meets the eye. So it draws you in, ensnares you and then that heady combination of great hooks, shoutalong choruses and dark, furious subject matter guarantees a prolonged and fulfilling relationship. Icky Mettle gives up its secrets piece by piece, and has somehow morphed with the times to remain as relevant and vital today as it ever was, perhaps even more so as so many of its mid 90s rivals have fallen by the wayside; the lack of true inspiration in the chaff from this era becoming ever more obvious with the passing of time and the re-aligning of perception. Icky Mettle’s currency is relationships gone bad, but the playful, catchy songs mean these anthems to lost love are cathartic, not mopey, and there’s never any doubting who’s coming out on top – after all, if you can work it out of your system by screaming at a room full of sweaty youths whilst pummeling your instruments and hammering home your points, it’s got to help, hasn’t it?

Icky Mettle sets it stall out in its very first line – a killer first line in a killer first song that has gone on to become The Archers of Loaf’s anthem. Simply put, Web in Front is awesome. And that line, ‘Stuck a pin in your backbone’ is surely etched in the minds of anyone who ever went to an indie disco in 1994. What a bizarre, beguiling and original combination of words. From the off it’s obvious that this is not a pale facsimile, a cynical bunch of bandwagon jumpers (not that, in monetary terms at least, this was a bandwagon worth jumping on!). No, Icky Mettle is an album made by the inspired, articulate and intelligent minds of Chapel Hill residents Eric Bachmann, Eric Johnson, Matt Gentling and Mark Price. And it’s played with raucous conviction – messy and unconcerned with dotting ‘i’s and crossing ‘t’s but thrillingly real and human throughout its brisk 38 minutes. 38 minutes that can so easily turn into 76, 114, 152… minutes as the addictive qualities of Icky Mettle begin to weave their magic on your heart, bones and synapses!

Rob listened: For reasons Tom has eloquently detailed, I was immersed, or perhaps flailing around, in the depths of this stuff in the first half of the 90s. For some time I would buy records, often seven inches, on the basis of a half-remembered Peel namecheck or even some half-sensed association with some other artist, perhaps based on the cover art or even the name. I certainly never remember hearing Web In Front at an indie disco, so I suspect it was one of these random routes which led me to it (and possible a poorly divined name-connection which then took me on to Wingtip Sloat (anyone?) and, in that case, no further). I’ve been hooked since day one. It’s a great record with all the qualities Tom outlines. I had the pleasure of reviewing their follow-up ‘Vee Vee’ and it’s more polished and straightforwardly rock but even so the strength of the songwriting is undeniable. Clearly the Archers had something forceful going for them even if they never garnered the recognition they deserved.