Sun split ember, and fields that span

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's 50 best albums of 2017.

#44 : I See You - The xx


On their third album, the London trio finally sheds the excessively hushed and incredibly influential electronica of their 2009 debut. Instead, they turn to the kind of vintage samples producer Jamie xx has long used in his solo work, setting richer, more uptempo backdrops against mournful dialogues about romantic disappointment and isolation.


Just to complicate matters further, we've not met this one yet on our trip across the 2017 charts but we're going to - so I'm going to save it for later and you'll just have to wait to find out what I thought about it (and yes, I obviously listened to it before I realised I wasn't going to be writing it up).

#43 : The Kid - Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith


After leaving university, LA musician Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith became enamoured with a 1960s synthesiser called the Buchla 100. Six albums later and she’s still not finished experimenting with it. On The Kid, lush soundscapes recall verdant forests humming with wildlife, accompanied by a winning sheen of wonkiness.


Our first visit with the lass - I'd definitely remember someone called Kaitlyn Aurelia if I'd met them before, even before we get to "the winning sheen of wonkiness".


Yeah, I don't mind this at all - it's like a cross between FSOL, Jon Hopkins and Kelly Lee Owens, all of whom are someone I listen to when I just fancy some ambient background sound. I'm not sure I'd need six albums of it and it certainly won't be for everyone (the lovely Mrs Reed would very much not appreciate it) but every so often it just hits the spot for me - and I can even see what The Guardian mean by "the winning sheen of wonkiness".


Somewhat to my surprise, the album has a Wikipedia entry and it confirms it's her sixth album and tells us that it's a concept album about the human life cycle (which I have to admit I didn't pick up on). Critically, everyone was very nice about the album except for, somewhat surprisingly, The Guardian - I guess they changed their mind about it at the end of the year. Her entry tells us she studied at the prestigious Berklee College and started out in the indie folk area until her neighbour, Terry Reilly (who is a well regarded composer and performer, still working at the age of 90) showed her a Buchla 100 - and she immediately abandoned everything else. Even more surprisingly, we also have some minor chart action to report with it having got to #24 in the Record Store album chart.


discogs.com tells us you can pick up a decent CD version for a fiver or a double vinyl for fifteen quid - or you can splash out on the blue smoked transparent vinyl for £30, which I bet looks gorgeous. And I think this album sounds gorgeous and would be quite happy to revisit it or explore some of her other stuff - but I do understand that others wouldn't be quite so keen.

#42 : Not Even Happiness - Julie Byrne


After leaving university, LA musician Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith became enamoured with a 1960s synthesiser called the Buchla 100. Six albums later and she’s still not finished experimenting with it. On The Kid, lush soundscapes recall verdant forests humming with wildlife, accompanied by a winning sheen of wonkiness.


Whereas we have met Julie before, on The Guardian's best of '23 list and I was very taken with what I heard, so I'm looking forward to this.


Yeah, this is good as well. Like last time, I'm reminded of Joni Mitchell whilst enjoying it a lot more than I usually do Joni's stuff - Laura Marling would also be another artist who feels similar. And like both of those talented ladies, Julie is also no slouch on the guitar - there's some lovely playing on this. All in all, very nice.


Wikipedia tells us this is her second album but manages to tell us remarkably little else, other than that it was produced by Eric Littman, whose death strongly influenced her '23 album that we previously met. Critically, it was very well received and made a load of year-end lists and we also have some minor chart action to report, with it having spent an impressive four weeks on the Record Store album chart.


discogs.com tells us that you can pick up a CD for a fiver, the standard vinyl for £18 or the natural blue vinyl for £29 - no, I've got no idea what colour that is, but it's the title of one of the tracks on the album, so I suspect that might have influenced matters. This is a very decent album if you like that female guitarist singer-songwriter kinda thang - I really must try to remember it exists.


So, two albums I liked and one I'm being coy about (oh OK, I liked that one as well) makes it impossible to declare a winner for this round, so let's just declare it a tie and thank everyone for a job well done - Julie gets the title lyric though, because she's definitely got the best lyrics.


#47-45 - Three very different albums

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

And all at once I owned the earth and sky

Image
A new year to start the New Year - starting my trip back through the 2001 album charts. 30/12/01 : Swing When You're Winning -   Robbie Williams There's a reasonable argument I should reject this album, but it was such a surprising cultural moment that even I don't feel I can, so it means we're starting the year with one that "we" own. This is our fifth visit with Mr Williams - I'm determined not to enjoy it, but I also have to admit I'm not going to hate it nearly as much as I would like to.  You know what? This is perfectly fine. Completely inessential, but he's not doing anyone any harm. For the most part, it's classic Sinatra-or-thereabouts tracks which Robbie does a decent job with on the vocals (along with some slightly peculiar guests) and they've obviously got some decent musicians in to lay down the backing tracks. He rarely does anything wildly original with them but, most importantly, he doesn't ruin them either - I don't...
Read more

I wanna keep the door from closing, yeah

Image
Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 26/12/25 : I Barely Know Her - Sombr Christmas week gives us some odd albums - last year we had Lana del Rey's album from '12, which hasn't left the chart all year. I'm pleased to say we're somewhat more up to date this year with an album that came out in August - I met it as a new entry  and was somewhat nonplussed by it, but I have mentioned it a couple of times since because it's just not gone away, which is somewhat unusual. So let's see what I make of it on a second listen (this trick totally failed to convince me of the virtues of Addison Rae earlier today). Well, well, well - Sombr at least intrigues on second listen. I'd struggle to describe it - it's kinda poppy indie with a woozy vibe to it, but it feels like it has depths to it and I reckon the more you listen to it, the more you pick up on. Intriguing indeed - I'd love to tell you more but that's all I got for the time ...
Read more

In your grace, I looked for some meaning - but I found none

Image
Continuing my trip up The Guardian's  50 best albums of 2025 . #3 :  Essex Honey - Blood Orange Dev Hynes’ fifth album as Blood Orange felt uniquely keyed into the fragmented, distracted headspace that comes after someone passes, in his case, his mother. Essex Honey’s restive nature was summed up in its painful opening lines, which you could read as the dying’s acceptance of death starkly contrasting the living’s ability to meet them on those terms: “In your grace, I looked for some meaning,” Hynes sings on Look at You. “But I found none, and I still search for a truth.” That search is wide-reaching: The Field refashions the Durutti Column’s Sing to Me as a racing hymnal made for the stereo of a Ford Escort. There are tough little Robert Rental-style post-punk gems in The Train (Kings Cross) and Countryside that bristle with frustration. Vivid Light is a plainly soulful duet with Zadie Smith; Life, featuring Tirzah’s unmistakable vocals, basks in languid, flute-dappled funk. T...
Read more