I have never been that much of a fan of rock and pop. Back in the day, I quite quickly graduated from progressive rock (oh dear) to jazz-rock fusion (oh dear), to real jazz, and classical. So I do not have a past where I was a major fan of this or that rock band, and there must be tons of music I never even heard.
However, with the way it is now possible to access all kinds of music all the time, I have delved into some music from the past that I vaguely remembered as being not bad and found that there are gems to be found, and maybe I should be a little less, eh: judgemental?
So here I wrote a few words about a dozen albums that are interesting enough to be listened to more than once. In my not-so-humble opinion.
Bill Fay: Life Is People
This is, I think, what Nick Drake would have sounded like today had he been with us still. Sounds like not much at first: grows and grows on you as you listen more. Charming and quirky, and then you realize how much depth there really is. It is a sparse, audiophile-grade production, letting Fay’s clearly ageing voice be the centre of a set of strong songs.
Cordelia’s Dad: Spine
Raw, propulsive folk with a twist. Very good songs sung very well, but the real gems here are in the arrangements and the style of play. Somehow manages to be true to the tradition while also sounding as fresh as if this kind of music had been created only yesterday. Of course influenced by some Fairport stuff, but (perhaps iconoclastic to say) with better and more masterful musicianship, by and large. And a production to go with it.
Flaming Lips: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
Never did listen to this back when it came out, preoccupied with other genres and not being in the age cohort that would naturally follow this. But I was wrong and listened now. Playful and strange, this is one path pop music could take, but it is also the less travelled one. Manages to be popular and experimental at the same time; being very odd and distinctive but also staying within the general framework of contemporary Western music. Playful and serious at the same time, which is some accomplishment.
Hood: Cold House
Cold, remote, and strange, I heard their music a long time ago, and didn’t think a lot of it, but still remembered it. Upon relistening so much later, I suddenly see that what was once odd and different is also reaching into the future, and could be seen as a foundation or an inspiration for a lot of later music. Not that it necessarily is: Hood quietly dissolved and disappeared. Yet, here we are: sounds as modern as anything. And still quite cold.
Jessie Mae Hemphill: She-Wolf
Ms Hemphill had strong familial roots in the North Mississippi hill country blues world: not a tradition that went on to inspire hordes of British guitar wizards. A blues tradition that was left somewhat behind, but therefore also stayed intact over the years and aloof from commercial influences. Ms Hemphill’s music is primal and wild, and one could think that, say, Nick Cave used to listen to stuff like this? This comes from the heart and the tradition and from hot Saturday nights where a lot of hooch is consumed.
Khruangbin and Vieux Farka Touré: Ali
Only recently ‘found’ this magnificent Thai funk, trance, psychedelic surf band — or whatever you want to call them. But all the kudos in this world to whoever thought: ‘Self, I have an idea. Why not hook up this Thai funk, trance, psychedelic surf band that has some success among some hipsters — yes, why not: let us get them together with the son of the Malian desert blues legend and let them play the songs of the father?’ And so it happened, and it so happened that it was a match made in heaven for wondrously beautiful music come out of it.
King Crimson: Red
You know: my impression of King Crimson was based on the very early stuff: boring, vapid ‘prog rock’ with classical influences and not much going for it. But then there is this (plus some later stuff such as Thrak): damn this is heavy. Mind you: I am not, and I will repeat that: not, a fan of heavy metal in any form or shape. Not that I would run away screaming and I do appreciate the fact that some of the playing is on a very virtuosic level. But, you know: the mostly silly lyrics and the lack of any variation wear me down. Red is, perhaps, a form of heavy metal. At least it is brutally brutal. And at the same time: it has a certain fragile beauty at its very center.
Low & Dirty Three: In the Fishtank
Warren Ellis has really come to the fore as the sidekick of Nick Cave, but he has a much longer history, being a bit of a wunderkind back in the day, and for fronting the instrumental rock band Dirty Three with his rather wild violin. While this could lead you to believe that the music is perhaps something like jazz-rock fusion (remember the violin in The Mahavishnu Orchestra?), this does not suffer from that particular affliction. No, it is rock and even roll, and it is very physical and very rocking (actually, Mahavishnu was not half bad now that I revisited. Oh well.) But to cut a long story short: here they are collaborating with minimalist rock duo Low, another strange, oddball band — and the results are magnificent. And downright beautiful. And unexpected.
Papa M: Whatever, Mortal
A remarkable and unexpected folk album — I mean: David Pajo was firstly a guitarist for numerous quite experimental and often instrumental outfits — but this album is tender and dark and he shows himself to be an excellent singer as well. I guess this shows that today’s artists are genre-fluid and you should not take too much for granted.
Tortoise: Millions Now Living Will Never Die
Yes, David Pajo is also here, but this is not exactly folk, is it? More like all kinds of indie rock heavily infused with electronica and whatnot. Like Krautrock and strange minimalism and so forth. The 20-minute long ‘Djed’ is the centrepiece, a majestic, slow-moving, shimmering beauty of postrock that shows that there can still be emotions and sheer meaning here, not just clever and angular abrasiveness.
Captain Beefheart: Trout Mask Replica
What to do with this? Of course, your first impulse is probably to turn it off and throw it in the garbage as a piece of amateurish improvisation by not-very-good musicians. But if you can stand a few more tries — perhaps in deliberately small doses — you will perhaps begin to understand that everything here is meticulously planned by the Captain, and the musicians are topnotch. Still, this, at least, is something that can never be elevator music, not in this universe (but, who knows, maybe in some parallel one?)
Kate Bush: Hounds of Love
Disclaimer: I never really liked Ms Bush, always seeing her as a weirdo pop diva. Maybe she is also that? I know now that she is a consummate musician, a wonderful singer, and in her own way, a feminist icon that surely shows that sisters can do it for themselves. Still, some of the production is perhaps a little bit dated, but the vision, the grandeur, the execution of it all is awe-inspiring. For such a simple pop album, eh?