I disembody but suffering is sovereign
Continuing my trip up #album-of-the-day...
21.03.09 : Music For Dancing - The Grid (1995)
Never heard of album or artist - part of me was expecting dance music but part me was also expecting the title to be ironic and to be presented with god-knows-what. But it's pretty dancey-trancey (although Wikipedia tells me it's really more techno, but that doesn't rhyme). It's something I might have listened to back in the day, but it doesn't really float my boat sitting in my rocking chair smoking my pipe these days, I'm afraid. It also has a surprising amount of banjo on it - and whilst there's a time and a place for the banjo, this isn't it because it just reminds you of Rednex. I was surprised there were only 27 minutes and four songs though - I was expecting it to bang on a lot more than that.
Oh, the channel points out that tracks 3-5 out of 11 aren't available on Spotify, so it appears that Amazon have a completely different version. Odd - I could try and remember my Spotify password, but I think I've probably got the general gist of things from what I've heard already. Anyways, the album got four thumbs up and a lot of discussion about the unavailable tracks. Wikipedia tells me that all of the tracks are remixes of old tracks except for one - "Diablo", which was the one with all the banjo on it, so it's fair to say I was not a fan. It also informed me that Dave Bell, ex of Soft Cell was a member of The Grid - which takes me back even further in time.
"Customers also listened to" The Shamen (a LOT of their albums!), Utah Saints and Leftfield - definitely in the same ballpark there. And yeah, I was into all of them a lot more back in the day - I'm just too old these days for such delights.
21.03.10 : Everyday Robots - Damon Albarn (2014)
Part of me likes Damon Albarn and thinks he's done a lot of interesting stuff on the musical front over his career. However, I find his dead-pan delivery generally annoying and, most especially, I also had to suffer (and that is definitely not too strong a word) Gorillaz at Glastonbury (when I'd been promised U2) and tbh, that's a hard thing to forgive a man. I was expecting this to be worthy but a bit of a kitchen-sinky mess and ultimately just too annoying - so let's see shall we? Well, it is a bit kitchen sink, but it's actually not too annoying - they're pleasant enough tunes, only occasionally spoilt by some random world instrument which has no obvious reason to be there. It was actually a bit dull overall though - only "The History Of A Cheating Heart" jumped out at me (and the Amazon user reviews agreed with me, giving this 10 and everything else 2 or 3). I quite like the melancholy album cover though.
The channel gave this two thumbs up and a lot of positive comments about the album and Mr Albarn's output in general. Wikipedia had a massive amount on the album - 269 milliPeppers. I think it's fair to say that most of it isn't exactly going to enrich your life, but I was interested to hear that Brian Eno and Bat For Lashes appear on the album - I imagine these are some of the very large collection of muso colleagues that Damon has collected in his Filofax over the years (and he's so going to have a Filofax). The album was well received both critically and commercially - #32 in the US and #2 in the UK, kept off the top by Paolo Nutini's Caustic Love (which would certainly get my vote above this).
"Customers also listened to" The Good, The Bad & The Queen, Blur and Sigur Ros - one of these things is not the same.
21.03.11 : Aromanticism - Moses Sumney (2017)
An artist I've experienced previously but I'm not sure the use of the phrase "spaghetti mess" meant I was exactly looking forward to experiencing any more of him. But, here we go anyway. However, I actually found this one a much more acceptable offering - either it's just slightly different enough to click with me or I was just more in the mood for it. The thing I particularly called out last time was his voice and I didn't find it all that annoying here. There was also definitely less of a spaghetti mess to this one - yes, it was still pretty sprawling but I thought it was reined in just enough to get away with being called expansive (which is a good thing, unlike spaghetti mess). There are some pretty nice sounds on there - it feels like a good late night album to me. It's a somewhat strange album cover though.
The channel gave this no emojis, some discussion as to how impressive he is live, one positive comment on the album and one "Moses Sumney thooooo!" - and I have no idea whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. Wikipedia tells me that the album's concept is "lovelessness as a sonic dreamscape" - you knew that already though, right? It was well received critically, featuring on many "best of 2017" lists, but didn't exactly set the world alight commercially, it appears.
"Customers also listened to" a load of people who I've never heard of but they have very cool album covers - I suspect they might be a bit too trendy for the likes of me. But I liked this a lot more than I was expecting to after our previous time together.
So, in an unexpected turn of events, Moses comes away with the spoils - this was a pleasant listen and I suspect further listens would provide further rewards.
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