Sunsheeeeeine!! Gather round the picnic table, everyone, help yourself to something from the hamper and a cold drink from the cooler, then please tell us all – what have you been listening to, watching, reading, or otherwise entertaining yourself with over the last month ?
How are you doing?
Listening:
a load of Beethoven piano sonatas, to be honest, particularly the Jonathan Biss recording of the Hammerklavier. An incredible thing. Plus my trusty 500-bop running playlist, as ever. Am starting to get tired of some of the old faves, though, so familiar high tempo stuff that makes me want to run really fast is always welcome.
Other than that, the new Hold Steady, “Open Door Policy”, is pretty damn good I hate the phrase “return to form” as I hate hell, all Montagues and thee, but it is a BIT of one. Much richer and wider in scope than anything since Separation Sunday, and they’re experimenting a bit with their sound. Good to hear.
Read:
Reading is the reason I listen to less music than I used to. It’s better. I’ve been ensconced in the Patrick O’Brian Aubrey/Maturin series since March, and I’m now on book 15, “Clarissa Oakes”. I struggle to think of a comparable achievement in fiction, and it’s just so fun, too.
Watched:
Nothing to write home about.
The best Hold Steady since Separation Sunday? That’s high praise! I enjoyed everything up to Stay Positive but it was diminishing returns after that and I haven’t bothered with the last few. I’ll give this a try…
No, not the best. The one with the biggest narrative scope, is what I meant. It’s no Boys and Girls in America, no Almost Killed Me, and definitely no SS. But it’s much better than any of their records I’ve heard since (though I didn’t get the last one, about which I’ve heard nonetheless good things).
Ah, I see. And Franz is back too, that seems like a good sign!
It really helps. Heaven Is Whenever was so sludgy and dull without him, and Teeth Dreams was just entirely meh. I lost track after that, never listen to either. He brings the sparkle, and I also think his arty erudition acts as inspiration to keep Craig and the rest from descending into beery lad-rock.
Have a stack of cds building up still to listen to.
Listened to this in the car https://www.cherryred.co.uk/product/halcyon-days-60s-mod-rb-brit-soul-freakbeat-nuggets-various-artists-3cd-box-set/.
Joni’s Blue too.
Left the County for the first time in 16 months, down to London for a week to stay with a brother in law and met our one year old great nephew for the first time.
Up to Cambridge to see another bil for another face to face meet.
Visited the V&A for the Alice exhibition (most enjoyable) using public transport for the first time in a over a year. Ate out in two restaurants Japanese and Thai.
Hurrah
Oh and 500 books to Oxfam approximately.
Oh and there was a by-election here, plenty of leaflets to read and burn. (The britain first was a real humdinger)
Oh and two visits to the theatre a local arts group welcome back and Woody Guthrie’s Bound For Glory, managed to buy a copy of the book so I’m in the process of reading that.
HEARD:
Last months Bandcamp Friday offerings were a great success. I spent a significant proportion of my undistinguished career in tunnelling and was intrigued to discover the the British Tunnelling Society had commissioned Nancy Kerry to write some songs about the industry. I downloaded her Tunnellers EP and enjoyed it. And as a result I downloaded her debut solo album Sweet Visitor, released in 2014. And as a result I am now aware of what a good songwriter she is. I’m really impressed!
As a result of Steve T and Locust’s recommendation I downloaded Emily Barkers “A Dark Murmuration of Words”, released last year I think. It’s a fine piece of work with excellent singing and songwriting
After seeing Richard Williams tweet about it I downloaded “Wes Reimagined” by the Nigel Price Organ Trio. It’s lovely! And extra kudos to Nigel for this splendid Twitter gag
My last download was “Outside Child” by Allison Russell, she formerly of Po’ Girl and currently in Birds Of Chicago with her husband JT Nero. This is her first solo album and is a very confessional piece with some very dark lyrics. I wonder if the bits she sings in french are even darker. Despite that, it’s a good listen as she is a fine singer
Been listening to the Guardian ‘Best albums of the first half of 2020’ and have to say it is a poor year if they are indeed so.
The Good
Black Country, New Road – rattling along, the vocalist is the weak link but instrumentals are great…
Arlo Parks – Collapsed In Sunbeams – 90s poppy R and B updated for now, even shades of the Style Council’s most summery work. Great in the detailed production and some sly melodies.
Yasmin Williams – Urban Driftwood – this is such a grower, each track sounding better than the last, and though solo guitar might sound monotone the melodies she wrings out of hers makes this anything but.
Wolf Alice – Blue Weekend. Not for me the defining ‘guitar album of the year’ quite yet. The first couple of songs are fantastic, but the album trails off and at times they are overly reliant on the charisma of Ellie Rowsell, raising the spectre of the Sleeperbloke once more.
The Bad
The tunes-free metal of The Body and Divide and Dissolve.
Will Stratton The Changing Wilderness is the bastard son of John Martyn and Nick Drake that certainly I don’t want. I will never get that (for me) hushed style of vocals (dives for cover).
READING
Christopher Priest’s The Adjacent is as allusive and magnetic as much of his writing. What a unique style he has.
I really, really like the Wolf Alice album. I wasn’t sure at first (it’s been unpleasantly overhyped by critics), but it grew on me over time, and The Last Man On The Earth has been one of the absolute tunes of the first half of the year round my way.
I know what you mean about the Sleeperblokes though.
I’ve found Black Country, New Road a bit of a disappointment. I absolutely loved Sunglasses a couple of years back, but it turns out that might be as much of them as I’ll ever need. It’s still pretty wonderful though.
Me not convinced by Wolf Alice neever.
Played it a fair few times (I think the regulation 6?) and on one day it’s a great little thing, on others it’s all a bit “oh, do something!”.
I think it’s a 5/10, with the capability of being a 7.5 on a good day.
I’ll keep trying … who knows it might reveal itself one day – there are some great songs (Last Man On Earth being the finest of the bunch) in there – but really not convinced
Cinema:
After Love – a really rather wonderful film about a wife finding out things about her husband she’d rather not know after his death.
TV: Watching an England football team it’s alright to like (five years ago wouldn’t have given them a second glance – but the trick is to avoid all the coverage before and after) …and I have Gurney Slade on CD to look forward to in July… started watching yet again Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, something which gets better with each viewing.
Listening:
Tyrannosaurus Rex’s 2nd LP and bought recorded music. No, really! Went to London and for next to nothing got Ska, Rock ‘n’ Roll, Link Wray, 60s library music… the full gambit… and finally got round to some Nederbeat – Q65. Seven CDs for about £18.
Selectadisc still have a full stock of CDs, and is excellent.
Reckless is definitely going down the vinly-mug-punter route (and why not at those prices?). Shouldn’t think they’ll stock any CD under £5 soon – some of them (quality stuff) were £2.
Disappointed with Fopp, fewer CDs, and the Zappa section was much smaller than last year.
Sport:
Local cricket – and the local football teams have now all got friendlies arranged. Should be a four-football-match-a-week job throughout July. I have no idea what is happening with Rugby, but I did see the 1st XV training this morning.
Reading:
In no danger of reading a newspaper dated 2021, but I must have read about 200 dated 1956-61 this month.
By the way, I haven’t seen that Uncut Dylan anywhere, not even London.
BEEN: On holiday! A glorious week on the Suffolk coast with all the necessary: dogs on sand (and shingle), fish’n’chips, several crabs and a wonderful walk/meet with the estimable @nigelthebald . Just great to be away.
SEEN: Anyone copped ‘Body Brokers’, a dramatisation around the systematic abuse of funded addiction beds in the US? Grim. Needed the 3 part doco, ‘Sophie: a Murder in West Cork’ to lift the mood (!) Having been to Schull, in the late 70s, it seems pretty unchanged. ‘Atypical’ is a comedy of sorts, around the life of a US teen with Aspergers. Terrifically well played and an unerringly accurate portrayal.Two series. The wife dug deep into ‘Wentworth’, a women’s prison drama from Aus. I must say it has all changed a bit from Googie Withers’ day.
READ: Another fallow period, I am afraid.
HEARD: Two very good recommendations leading another pack of hopefuls vying for attention. Justin Sullivan (NMA, so beloved of @kid-dynamite) has put out a 2nd solo album, ‘Surrounded’, and it is terrific. His idiosyncratic vocals are wrapped in acoustic guitars, a string section and a harp, to appealing results. And the Stornoway Springsteen, Colin MacLeod has bettered even his last record, with ‘Hold Fast’, which is more of the broadscreen gravel that gives him the soubriquet, with a little bit, this time, more light. With Sheryl Crow duetting on a couple of tracks, it has a real feel of Rodney Crowell’s work with Emmylou.
Elsewhere, if you like a bit of Laurel Canyon-esque singer-songwritery, with echoes of Jackson Browne, look out for a fella called Steve Dawson, not the Saxon bassist, who has a superb record coming later this month, ‘At the Bottom of a Canyon, in the Branches of a Tree.’ One for folk like @niallb who lap up the sounds of Dawes, I would have thought.
Finally, a fantastic retrospective compendium of Rod Stradling, melodeon player sublime, has crept out. Called ‘Treacle and Bread’, it is a joy of english dance music, and features the earliest awakenings of Edward II, tracks from their long lost cassette only debut.
Heard:
– Only one new thing arrived at Digit Towers in the last month – Wolf Alice.
Nice enough, but not convinced (yet) that it is one of the Albums Of The Year.
– CD Swappage provided some new listening (and inevitably led to more purchases)
– ZZ Top have been filling many other gaps – best advice for the Bearded ones: don’t start with Eliminator (it may have sold 250 million or something, but I’m not convinced it’s one of their best)
Seen:
– There’s some football on apparently, and I went to a proper pub to watch one game (and I traveled on a bus to get there – get me!)
– All 3 series of Motherland have been binged
– Together (Sharon Horgan and James McAvoy)
Quite dark, amusing in places, and did try to score some political points along the way. Probably intended as a 2 handed play, but filmed and televised when no theatres were open
Read:
– Dave Hill autobiog So Here It Is
Slade were massive, but income was seemingly poor. Dave never really moved away from the Midlands – Solihul was as far as he dared venture (he was still living at home with his folks when Slade had 3 number one hits in a year)).
Forgot Together: splendidly bleak, Breeders with fewer laughs..
Thought Together was simply magnificent!
Heard:
A bit limited due to two post-exam teens sleeping at all hours of the day. The best/worst example being Offspring The Younger surfacing at 3:30pm.
A Certain Ratio’s 4-track ACR:EPA, featuring the last recorded works of vocalist Denise Johnson. ACR:EPC arrived yesterday, featuring another fave singer, Maria from Sink Ya Teeth. ACR:EPR comes out next month.
Martha Marlow – Medicine Man. This is fabulous, the best of that kind of thing since the debut Norah Jones album. My only complaint, and it is a small one, is at 58 minutes the CD is a bit long. Especially for someone used to turning a record over every 20-odd minutes. I can’t see how anything else is going to beat it come the end of year poll.
Read:
Sinéad O’Connor’s autobiog. Quite a slight volume, considering, but there’s a decade or three lost to heavy dope-smoking. I’m pleased she’s finally clean and I hope she can move on and make new music.
Seen:
The usual uniform/murder tosh chosen by Mrs F. Jimmy McGovern’s prison drama Time was great, although at only 3 episodes could easily have been longer.
AOB:
Offspring the Elder had surgery to repair a pnuemothorax two weeks ago. Keyhole surgery and a 3-day stay in ITU. Covid restrictions meant only one visitor for an hour every other day, in full PPE & visor, so I was stuck at home fretting. Stitches came out on Thursday. After being whacked out on Codeine for days, she’s now complaining again, so must be on the mend.
In other news, having waited 6 months for architect’s drawings of my garage office & soundproofed den, at the request of the builder, the builder has now told me he’s not available until next Easter. A carpenter came to visit last weekend and is interested. It might be over by Christmas. Standard building materials – plasterboard, insulation, wood, sand, etc – have nearly tripled in price since Covid/Brexit so it ain’t gonna be cheap.
@fentonsteve the increase in price of raw materials is actually very little to do with Brexit and much moreto do with a challenged supply chain from China. A 40′ cntr from China would have cost $2500 as recently as last July and is now costing as much as $18000. Transport from Europe hasnt seen any noticable increases. Covidis the cause of it because cargo flights have dropped dramatically meaning much more demand for seafteight and also China came out of lockdown earlier, shipped cntrs to Europe and there was no replenishment of empty cntrs in China. All meaning shippers/importers desperate to maintain their supply chains would pay almost anything.
Wait for the collapse
BEEN: on holiday too. South West Coast Path. My knees are 5 years older than when I started this project, and they don’t like steps; it’s easier walking in the Lake District. All very wonderful, all the same. Saw seals, choughs and all the Gulf-stream influenced vegetation. Co-incident with the G7, it was fun in Falmouth playing ‘spot the plainclothes copper’ – always in pairs and somehow don’t look relaxed enough to be on holiday.
It should have been Falmouth Shanty Festival that weekend, but that got cancelled long ago. The one cap doff was The Oggymen came a-performing along the waterfront hostelries, floating by on a raft. Undoubtedly they are polished and practiced, but just a little too much for me. They were more like barbershop than the raucous shanties which I hear belted out at festivals in normal times.
The ‘turn’ at The Sloop in St Ives was asked for ‘something that Fishermans’ Friends would do’ by some nice couples on holiday. My mate feared the worst – of course, I know all the choruses – though the turn told me later that performers are being asked to discourage the public from joining in. Don’t think I saw a similar policy at the Euros.
Read:
Lost Children Archive by Mexican author Valeria Luiselli is one of the best novels I’ve read this year. Dense, long and challenging, but so rewarding and brilliantly written. And despite calling it dense and challenging I wouldn’t say it’s difficult to read, the text flows and is poetic and sometimes also humorous, and always keeps you wanting to know what comes next. But it’s intellectually ambitious and deals with difficult subjects, so at first it can seem like “hard work” – but keep at it, it’s going to stay with you for a long time!
Less intellectually ambitious…Later by Stephen King, another short novel for Hard Case Crimes, but more supernatural and less crime oriented than the previous one, Joyland. About a boy who “can see dead people”, and speak to them too, but only for a few hours or days after their death. Until a cop demoted to security guard makes him help her talk to a serial killer who just killed himself, to get information that can help her become a hero and get her old job back. This dead guy doesn’t leave like the others, leading to unpleasant things (the bad cop doesn’t leave him alone either, which leads to even worse things).
Well, unfortunately this sounds better as a premise than it is finished novel. Partly because it’s narrated by the kid (later teenager) and he’s not a very good narrator, partly because the story slowly but surely becomes silly and illogical, but never actually scary. If it had been in King’s normal long novel form, I think he could have made this work really well, but in this hurried form it falls flat (for me).
Fragile Monsters by Catherine Menon is a novel set in Malaysia, which is the best part of it, really. It revolves around a family where everyone is keeping secrets (and have very unattractive personalities…) A granddaughter visits her grandmother for Diwali and almost manages to burn down the house with some faulty fireworks, and in the ensuing chaos (grandmother in hospital after smoke inhalation, the road to Kuala Lumpur flooded, an old crush showing up) she finds clues in the house that makes her confront her grandmother to get some answers.
I didn’t like it much, especially not at first; absolutely every person in this novel is awful: mean, selfish, envious, lacking in empathy, lying and hiding truths, complaining, criticizing, and ready to kill, maim, hurt, steal from and destroy the reputation of anyone they get angry with. Friendships are only rivalries and love is just a spiteful action. But the later chapters were somewhat redeeming, the characters became more vulnerable and easier to understand once some of their secrets got revealed, and the story got more interesting. And you see that the lies are a way of surviving unbearable circumstances where tragedies needs to be rewritten into happy endings to not destroy you. Having said that, I still wouldn’t recommend it much. It’s OK, mostly well written for a debut novel, refreshing with a different setting from most books, but a bit lightweight and too many annoying characters for my taste!
I finally got around to reading Circe by Madeline Miller, which have been in my TBR-pile for quite a while, and it was definitely worth the wait! What a beautiful, entertaining, funny, moving and well written retelling of Circe’s story! Only a bit player in the old Greek myths, here she tells her life story to us herself, from growing up in the very dysfunctional family of Gods and Titans, over being banished to a deserted island for her use of magic (or for admitting to it), to her relationships with Gods and men, and the son she has by Odysseus. A book I barely could put down, and also one that stayed with me after I finished it. Highly recommended!
I also read Howards End by E M Forster, after having enjoyed most of the other novels by him previously, and time and time again hearing that this is his best one…of course I ended up not liking it much! I enjoyed parts of it, but ultimately I found it a bit annoying. There’s a bit from the middle towards the end that I liked, but the beginning half and the ending was a bit ridiculous IMO. And again: I didn’t like the characters at all, none of them. I find it very difficult to enjoy a book (or film, TV, play) unless I like the people in it. I don’t mean that they have to be “nice” or someone I’d get on with in real life, I just have to be able to enjoy them being the way they are. And that’s mainly dependent on the writing, I find. It was still interesting and entertaining in parts, but not a new favourite.
A small jewel of an autobiographical novel was Family Lexicon by Natalia Ginzburg, where she tells the story of her Jewish Italian family before, during and after WW2, and tell it with a lot of focus on the sayings and quotes and in-jokes that every family collects over time, and often also inherits from previous generations. This family is very eccentric and entertaining, and I laughed out loud a lot – not just when first reading the funny parts, but again when I recalled them afterwards. There is of course some drama and sadness during the war years, but the family is quite lucky so the humorous tone of the book only get dampened, but not silenced.
And my lunch book in June was the richly illustrated The Madman’s Library: The Strangest Books, Manuscripts and Other Literary Curiosities from History by Edward Brooke-Hitching (quite a mouthful). One for book fetishists, entertaining and beautiful. Well suited to daily bitesized portions.
Seen:
The documentary about Tiny Tim, which I enjoyed a lot. I still don’t get how he ever became famous or admired…but it was a fascinating story!
Oh, and some football as well…personally I hope Italy wins!
Heard:
After a stressful period when I barely listened to any music, I bought a lot of albums and had time to enjoy them during my week-long holiday.
Starting with the Swedish ones:
Sarah Klang – Virgo holds more of her pleasantly melancholy Americana-tinged songs, and I like this one much better than her second album. Her gorgeous voice is the big draw, of course.
My old favourite Anders F Rönnblom released his 31st (if I’ve counted them correctly – compilations not included!) album Framtiden är en underbar plats att komma till (“The Future is a wonderful place to get to”) and it’s as brilliant as always. I’m guessing that his hectic work tempo in recent years has to do with retiring from his “civilian” career in design, he seems to release one or two albums a year lately. I’m not complaining! Bluesy rock with verbose lyrics.
Another – younger – favourite is Markus Krunegård, and his latest album TUTTI FRUTTI – från lokalen under sushin is a bit uneven, but the highs outweighs the lows (which aren’t that low anyway). I guess “Alternative Pop” is as close to a description as I can come up with.
And onto the international albums:
Mdou Moctar – Afrique Victime is great if you enjoy the Tuareg blues and guitar sounds that always makes me think of Dick Dale (on a beach without an ocean…) for some reason. I still like his previous album (Ilana – The Creator) better, but this is also brilliant, and may grow to overtake that one with time.
A perfect companion to Moctar is King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard who are, for the third time, doing “Explorations Into Microtonal Tuning” on the album LW. The sound of this is taking parts of North African/Arabic music, heavy rock, funk, jazz fusion, pop melodies and a pinch of humour and mix them together into a groove that will make you dance in your chair and headbang while humming along with the chorus. Another extremely prolific band – if they keep up this pace they will totally dominate my record collection in ten years…!
I haven’t bought anything by Gary Numan since the 80s, but the positive reviews got me to take a punt at his new album Intruder and I thoroughly enjoy it. For some reason (and I don’t mean this as an insult, I hasten to add) listening to it I found myself thinking that he should enter the ESC for Britain with one of his gothic tunes, he’d be a success (preferably in a costume with black wings on his back or similar OTT vibes)! As long as he didn’t pick one of his most morose compositions, the ESC fans would adore him. 🙂
A review for the new mono mix of Margo Guryan’s “soft rock classic” Take a Picture from 1969 intrigued me, as I’d never ever heard of her or the album…so of course I had to buy it. I’m enjoying it, some very catchy and cute radio-friendly tunes with the typically charming production and arrangement style of the time, her voice is very thin and could put some people off I suspect, but I don’t mind it at all. it’s fluff, but it’s pleasant fluff.
Then there’s a bunch of country/Americana/folk albums that I’ve heard once or twice so far, but not delved into long enough to form a real opinion yet. Sounding mostly good so far, especially Will Stratton – The Changing Wilderness and The Paper Kites – Roses (featuring different guest singers on each track, including Swedish golden voice Amanda Bergman), but also albums by Amy Speace, Sarah Jarosz and The Antlers.
AOB:
Most of our restrictions were lifted or lightened on July 1, and combined with the hot weather the mood in Stockholm has been “carefully elated”…everyone enjoying sitting at the curbside tables outside every restaurant and pub long into the night, but not the pent-up “Let’s paaarty!” explosion that I feared.
I had my second jab in mid-June, and all of my family is fully vaccinated now. Spent a day with my dad on my vacation, not having seen him since Christmas, so that was lovely! And mum’s 90th birthday bash with the closest family was a great success, a thoroughly enjoyable day together and with messages and gifts from relatives in other countries, she loved all of it. I managed to finish making her traditional Birthday Book the night before, after a final day of non-stop drawing/colouring/writing long into the early morning hours… But worth the toil, as it was a huge success.
Getting my “proper” vacation end of July/most of August, until then I’m working twice as hard, but as I’m doing quite different tasks than I usually do for most of the days, it still feels a bit like a holiday…at least it’s a change!
You’ve got me very curious about Lost Children Archive Locust.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jun/20/valeria-luiselli-i-look-at-mexico-from-afar-with-pain-and-love
It might even be a candidate for our Book Circle.
The guardian critic was lukewarm.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/mar/03/lost-children-archive-valeria-luiselli-review
But this reader (in the comments) was very impressed:
fingerlakeswanderer
4 Mar 2019 13:06
“I have to disagree with the critic’s assessment of LOST CHILDREN ARCHIVE. I recently read it and found it compelling. Luiselli uses “found items” — reports, news articles, documents — as additions to the narrative, which challenges readers to interact with the same documents that the characters are responding to.
She also changes the narrators in a few places. There is no single one narrator. The book is narrated by children toward the end as the two children who have been in the back of the car do the thing that the critic wants — they attempt to intercede in the migration issue, the same one that the parents are talking about in the front seat during the road trip.
Luiselli brought us the heartbreaking TELL ME HOW IT ENDS, in which she documented what it was like to translate for CHILDREN who were being forced to go before judges to represent themselves in immigration court. Yes. Children advocating for themselves.
The fact that the narrator of the story feels almost helpless in the face of what’s going on a the American border is not surprising. The current president has created a crisis, and America is now the land where children and toddlers and infants are separated from their parents and kept in cages or else adopted out to the “Christian” friends of administration officials.
Luiselli’s book is brilliant.”
It sounds very promising,
That Guardian reviewer apparently read a very different book from the one I read – I can’t agree with anything they say about it! But you often get out what you put into the reading of a book, so perhaps the reviewer had 48 hours to read it and throw a review together and didn’t have time to appreciate all of the many echoes (one of the side-themes of the novel) that Luiselli weaves into the text for you to discover, or time to enjoy the taste of the gourmet prose, or time to sit down and think all of the thoughts that this novel inspire…I’ll blame it on a tight deadline (as opposed to the reviewer being a schmuck… 😉 )
You are far too understanding @Locust!
Critics are not always right!
I’ve suggested that our book circle give it a try
Here’s an interview with Valeria. ( I wish they’d left out the background music!)
I find as I get even older I pay less and less attention to critics. There was a time when I could confidently say , for instance, “If Derek Malcolm likes that film then so will I.”
Nowadays with every “proper” reviewer apparently a trendsetting smartarse I rely more and more on sites like the AW to give me a steer
Finally finished the Pete Paphides book. Wonderful stuff. Just started Alastair Campbell’s diaries. Really looking forward to this. The 2nd half of the 90’s was a great time to be in your mid twenties.
Seen loads. Been binging Motherland. It’s funny how you can find a show so entertaining while also loathing 90% of the characters in it. We are currently working our way through Guy Garvey :From The Vaults. Now, the premise might not draw you in straight away. Garvey narrates over old footage from the ITV archives consisting of late night shows and long forgotten kids TV shows. But it’s brilliant. I’d forgotten just how good The Tube was for a start. The Euros have been fantastic. My wife (American) has really got into it too which has been rather nice. I was lucky enough to attend several England games in 19996 including the Germany game so it was lovely to finally see us finally banish that game forever (we can only hope). Enjoyed the last season of The Blacklist. They left enough there for another series but maybe it’s run its course. James Spader needs to do more films. You can’t not see him as Raymond Reddington now and that’s a shame.
Apologies all for being so late to the party. Meant to post this last week which would have still been late but not this late:
Music:
Eclectic this month, I have heard some stuff I have really liked.
Erland Cooper – introduced to him by Mojo – actually Paul Weller’s compiled disc. I got Sule Skerry and Hether Blether. Annoyingly the third in the trilogy is only available digitally which frankly pisses me off. Still achingly beautiful music and I will explore his work further.
Liminanas – French White Stripes but with more melody and more intrigue – I got their compilations I’ve got trouble in mind Volumes 1 and 2 – both great.
At long last I bought a Sandie Shaw best of – first woman I remember getting a crush on aged about 10 – I love her voice, just wish Puppet on a string could be erased from her catalogue. Dreadful.
The exciting sounds of Menahan Street band is my find of the month – exceptional instrumental music in the mould of blaxploitation moves but better than that. Might be my favourite album of this year – will review separately as it deserves it.
Bobby Gillespie and Jehnny Beth Utopian Ashes is a cracker – reminds me of a modern day Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood in parts — hope to see them on tour.
The Lukas Nelson and the Promise of the real album A few Stars apart didnt meet my expectations. Of all of his albums it is the one that sounds like his old man. Languid, a little sleepy – okay but I really wanted the electric Lukas Nelson not this. Maybe it will grow on me but it hasnt yet.
I got the 2 cd reissue of Sun Ra’s Lanquidity which sounds remarkably current and perfect hazy summer evening music – great – I wish I knew where else to explore because his catalogue is overwhelmingly large.
READ:
Sinead O’Connors Rememberings – I really liked this – this it was slight but she writes well and writes candidly. Clearly has issues but many are because others don’t see the world the way she does.
Willy Vlautin The night always comes – the master is back – there isn’t a better chronicler of the underbelly of American society. His main character Lynette in this book is desperate to do the right thing but in her desperation does everything wrong. The reader ends up having massive sympathy for her and her attempts to make it in an environment where making it is an impossibility. Top notch.
SEEN: the Father which had great performances from Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Coleman but I thought just missed the heights it strived for.
I preferred Colin Firth’s performance with Stanley Tucci in Supernova which was deeply moving and hit the spot.
Time with Sean Bean and Stephen Graham was stupendous tv – not usually a fan of Sean Bean but I thought he was excellent in this.
https://www.ents24.com/birmingham-events/st-pauls-church-1/erland-cooper/6231576
Erland Cooper plays Brum, and elsewhere, in October.
Interested?