Bright hopes come true as we walk the town

Continuing my trip up #album-of-the-day...

20.04.30 : Music Has The Right To Children - Boards Of Canada (1998)

An album I've heard and I remember enjoying back in the day, so was pleased to revisit.  Unfortunately, I didn't initially enjoy it as quite much as I remembered but I put this down to the fact that I was doing the gardening at the same time - it's not really a "doing the gardening" kind of album.  A revisit in a quieter moment restored my faith in the album which just goes to show you should never write things off at first listen (and OBVIOUSLY I do this all the time).  It's got some lovely quiet beepy bits to it and flows along nicely - obviously, it has some mildly annoying bits as well but albums like this need them otherwise they just get a bit dull.  There are some magnificently named tracks as well - "Triangles & Rhombuses", "Turquoise Hexagon Sun", "Pete Standing Alone" and "Roygbiv" (which is the acronym my daughter uses, which feels almost harder to use to me than just remembering the colours) 

I was expecting this to go down well with the channel, but although it definitely has its fans, the reaction was more muted than I expected.  It was generally positive though with only one "not for me, I'm afraid" - although praise did continue to drip-feed through in the following couple of days.  Wikipedia tells me the band are Scottish - for some reason I'd just assumed they were American (no, not Canadian - that would be too obvious!).  The album was (and still is) critically admired, but didn't overly trouble the charts, reaching #193 (and, to be honest, I didn't know they counted that far down).  However, their later albums fared better and I suspect this has sold a fair few copies retrospectively over the years (and considerably more than the 60,000 Wikipedia claims).

"Customers also listened to" Nightmares On Wax, David Holmes, Lemon Jelly and Sneaker Pimps - and there's some fine albums amongst that selection of artists.  But I was pleased to be reminded of Boards Of Canada and enjoyed this album (once I'd got the gardening out of the way!).

20.05.01 : Ágætis byrjun - Sigur Rós (1999)

Another album I've heard and I remember enjoying back in the day - what's going on?!?  I waited until I wasn't doing the gardening to listen to this and it was most enjoyable over a good set of headphones - a very expansive sound.  Not entirely sure I needed 71 minutes of it though - I found it fading into the background somewhat towards the end.  It's a cool album cover though!  If you're not aware of Sigur Rós, I really don't have the faintest idea how to describe them to you - Wikipedia goes for post rock, dream pop and art rock, so hopefully this helps (it doesn't, does it?).  My main concern around the band is not related to how you might describe them, but instead how do you pronounce their follow-up to this album - ()?  Apparently, the band call it Svigaplatan (literally "the bracket album").

Again this was one I was expecting the channel to like, but they REALLY liked it - this has got to be one of the best received albums so far with lots of love all round for it.  Wikipedia tells me that the album's name means "A good beginning", which was the comment from one of their mates when they played him the first song (which feels very Scandinavian to me).  It also includes the following amusing statement "Sigur Rós assembled and glued together the cases of the first print of Ágætis byrjun themselves. As a result, many of the CDs were unusable due to glue stains".  Oops!  The album didn't overly trouble the charts anywhere, but has sold surprisingly well - it feels like a proper "word of mouth" album.

"Customers also listened to" a load of people I've never heard of - I was wondering who would show up because, after all, who actually sounds like Sigur Rós?  They have their own little space in the musical spectrum and a very fine space it is too.

20.05.04 : Hercules And Love Affair - Hercules And Love Affair (2008)

And it's a hat trick of albums I've heard and I remembered enjoying - we're on a fine run for me here.  Having said that, when I listened to it, it was a more curious affair than I remembered it being with a lot of stuff having been thrown at the wall, some bits sticking better than others.  I like Anohni's voice and think it brings something unusual to what could in places otherwise be some pretty run-of-the-mill disco.  "Blind" is my favourite track - it winds up nicely over its 6:17 and, for a change, I probably wouldn't have minded if it had been given a bit longer and allowed to get a bit madder.

The channel was pretty quiet on this - I think it was unlucky because people were still loving the previous two albums too much.  Wikipedia doesn't have an awful lot to say about the album other than that it was generally critically admired and did OK commercially - the band's entry is much more interesting, featuring such sentences as "He developed an early love for Greek Mythology" and  "He went on to give his first DJ set aged fifteen, in a Denver leather bar run by a hostess called Chocolate Thunder Pussy". 

"Customers also listened to" Hot Chip (there are definite similarities in places on this album), Roisin Murphy (who I also like a lot) and Junior Boys (who I can tell you nothing about).  Overall, I was pleased to revisit this album, even if it was a bit odder than I remembered.

A reasonably laid back selection in this round, any of which I could be in the mood for at some point (but not whilst gardening) and any of which would walk off with the winner's medal in some of the other rounds we've had.  I think Sigur Rós just shade it over the other two because of how fantastic it sounded over headphones, but it was a close run thing - they're all fine albums.

20.04.27 - Not a lot of common ground here
20.05.05 - Some modern music