Three Of My Favourite Albums of 2011

I decided several weeks ago that this year I would not attempt a “Favourite Albums of 2011” series of blogs.

Three reasons:

1. Pretty much every single one of my “favourite bands” has, this year, released an absolutely stunning album of unbelievable quality. Not only would it be utterly exhausting to wax lyrical about each of them, it's also the case that in The King of Limbs, The Whole Love, Mylo Xyloto, Kiss Each Other Clean, Ravedeath 1972, Far Side Virtual, Waves of the Random Sea, Circuital, Lula, Helplessness Blues, Ashes & Fire, Collapse Into Now etc. etc. etc. - well, there seems to be about ninety different contenders for “Album of the Year” - I just couldn't. I just couldn't. “The album” isn't dead. It's so alive that to write about how strong a year this has been for that particular form is just beyond me.

2. My stance with this blog has always been one of reactionary positivity. The result has been a style of writing which comes across as a defence of my love for most things in the face of a world which seems to distrust, scorn and ostracise anybody who dares to suggest that perhaps everything isn't so terrible. This often extends to little more than criticism of criticism – an approach which is horrible to write and – I'm guessing – unbearably tedious to read. Which leads me to:

3. I simply don't enjoy reading or writing about music any more.

Yep, I think I like music far too much to read or write about it any more.

And that is NOT to suggest that all who can write (or read) about music are somehow less passionate am I. Probably it's just the case that they all have thicker skin than me.

Good for them. But, as far as I'm concerned, I started a personal war against the snarks and the cynics and the snarks and the cynics won.

I can't beat them. But I think I'd rather die than join them.

And yet, and yet:

Out of habit – and perhaps as a cleansing means of reminding me of how out of touch I am (which felt strangely comforting) – I have read a lot of end of year lists.

Of course I avoided The Quietus and The Collapse Board like I'd cross the road to avoid a pissed-up shadow-boxing lecherous defamed and deformed porn-star encountered on the street. But – whilst I've enjoyed those I did read like a lapsing junky on the brink of cold turkey might enjoy one last hit – three albums which have, for me, more or less defined 2011 have been notable by their unforgivable absence throughout.

So what will be - for the time-being at least - my final attempt at writing about music is just an effort to redress the balance. These albums are too good to go completely unmentioned. And, even if their only mention is to be found on my small and inconsequential corner of the internet, at least the silence will thus be that little bit less deafening overall.

So, here we go, then. For want of a better introduction, my three favourite albums of the year:

Jonny – Jonny

Norman Blake I acknowledge as one of the most consistent and beloved British songwriters of the past couple of decades. Euros Childs is something of a hero of mine. This year, they got together and recorded an album – apparently the fruits of a historical tour undertaken by Teenage Fanclub and Gorky's Zygotic Mynci. The former are still something of a fringe interest for me. But, with every passing summer, they become that little bit more important. The latter, though, are nothing less than one of the major hubs of my musical landscape around which a lot of other acts orbit.

I think it says a lot about the prolific genius of Euros Childs that he recorded an entire solo album – probably his fourteenth in two years – whilst waiting for the Jonny sessions to begin. It's not quite the case that he can do no wrong, but I've long since realised that everything he does is always, apart from anything else, reliably interesting and really, really fun.

Jonny is therefore interesting and a lot of fun as a matter of course. But – and I'm not above attributing this to the melodic prowess of Norman Blake – it also happens to be beautiful, endearing, marvellous and genuinely warming throughout.

It's generally the case that every album I regard as “essential” didn't really connect with me on the first listen. It's no coincidence that the most enduring of albums only reveal their treasures on repeated listens. However – to judge this album on its own terms – from the outset it was a Goldmine. Every single track has something to recommend about it – be it a timeless melody, an insistent, addictive hook, a surprising middle-eight, a curious and amusing lyrical twist or an extended foray into spaced-out atmospherics.

Yes, some tracks are so short that they could never have clicked immediately, but even on the first listen I can still remember being struck by how – from You Was Me through to Bread – you had an incredible run of five flawless gems of songs – the sort of songs so simple, honest and beautiful that they could have been written by anyone in any year – and yet – at the same time – they simply couldn't have been written by anyone else.

Jonny is sweet, simple, addictive and was probably a lot of fun to make. Which, of course, also makes it a lot of fun to listen to.

Gruff Rhys – Hotel Shampoo

I don't think I've ever heard a song which uses a sample quite like Shark Infested Waters does. It opens with the sound of a radio being detuned. We hear snatches of songs and snippets of melody, but the listener – whose ears we're apparently channelling – can't seem to settle. But eventually we stumble across a very agreeable little rhythm which is so worthy of our attention that it shifts sharply into focus and becomes the song.

And the entire song is built around this little captured iota of another song. And, as song's go, it's perhaps the first since Van Der Graaf Generator's Killer to be sung from the perspective of a hungry shark driven by raw animal instinct. It undulates like waves on the shore and – in an amazing master touch – right at the end order is restored as that insistent rhythm settles back into the gorgeous Burt Bacharach standard from which it was lifted.

This is a song, then, which doesn't try to hide the fact that it exists on the wings of another. This, in conjunction with the detuned radio conceit, creates an overall feel for the album that follows which couldn't be more appropriate – this is music which is so special that it feels like you've stumbled across it by accident whilst idly cycling through the radio waves. I'm terrified to even nudge the dial in case it's lost forever.

And then comes Honey All Over – a more perfect summation of the golden hazy joys of summer has seldom been evoked in sound. Such a title, indeed, goes in a long way to describe the irresistible voice of Gruff Rhys. Even in these bleak winter months it's as soothing as a syrupy hot totty on a frazzled flu-inflected throat and mind.

But all of it I'm afraid just leaves room for the insanely divine – the heaven-sent miracle that is Patterns of Power. I'm never really comfortable with defining entire albums by just one song, but I'm sorry – this lysergic, euphoric, fuzzy life-affirming psychedelic britpop sound is, for me, the sound of happiness itself. No other song this year has succeeded in inspiring anything less than pure unbridled glad-to-be-breathing joy than this mini-masterpiece.

Which by default might make Hotel Shampoo the album of the year.

But, in a year of masterpieces, I cannot and will not go that far.

 British Sea Power – Valhalla Dancehall

Earlier this year, British Sea Power supported The Flaming Lips when they played Jodrell Bank. Originally, Brian Cox was to provide keyboard duties – the idea being, of course, that those long-untapped skills the eminent scientist developed in his time with D:REAM would really add something to the spectral wonder these gentle genii are capable of generating.

It didn't happen in the end. But it always seemed so fitting a union. For many of Valhalla Dancehall's widescreen epics would be perfectly suited for soundtracking those shots which are to be found in all of Bri Bri's shows – those bits where he walks around such panoramic landscapes as resemble alien landscapes looking utterly spellbound.

Which is my long-winded way of saying that Valhalla Dancehall is spellbinding throughout it's lengthy yet still short-lived runtime.

But an album of meandering soundscapes this certainly is not. No, British Sea Power are a rock band, and, like many rock bands, they choose to open their album with an immeasurably satisfying guitar chord which gives way to building, thumping drums and an addictive driving riff in a song which contains a call and response chorus and no small amounts of “Whooo!”. This could be described as “rock by numbers”, and “rock by numbers” could be construed as an almighty slight against them were it not for the fact that a) this just means that it's an energising serum of brilliance and b) few other songs have been so prescient in their defence of libraries and their proclamations of sexy protesting.

Yes. Besides all, this album's relevant.

British Sea Power are one of the finest and most fascinating of bands to ever emerge from anywhere. Like all the best bands, they exude not just a sound, but a feel – and theirs feels like the biting salty air of the British coast; the peaty sting of aged whiskey; the distant cawing of endangered wildfowl.

Long may be their reign.

That's all.

10 Things I Learned At Glastonbury 2011

Photos are by James Wilkes and are stolen from his Facebook.

I recently swore a solemn oath to attend Glastonbury every year it takes place for either as long as I live, or, at the very least, as long as it's sensible for me to do so. They've got that place nailed. Once again, each of the five days sowed at least one memory which will be treasured for life. In fact, I had such a wonderful time that I've even begun to consider 2011's to be a new benchmark in life-affirmation. Ho yes: I might just have enjoyed myself more than I did in 2009.

I would hammer out a painstaking dissection of my entire weekend, but for a few reasons. First of all, nobody would read it. Second of all, so prone am I to hyperbole and hagiography that those who did read it might mistake my ramblings for Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Mostly, though, it was always going to be the case that I'd finally “get” U2, that Coldplay would spellbind and that Elbow would, once again, make me feel like I'm floating several feet above my body.

Instead, then, in a rare moment of brevity on my part, I'm going to share the ten things I learned at Glastonbury 2011:

1. I Really Like Rock Music

Yes, this was always the case, I know. I couldn't help but notice, though, how all but two or three of the acts I saw over the weekend comprised of either gently strumming ethereal wonders or furiously punishing squalling warriors of such vigour that they'd be just in describing their instruments as “axes”. And you know what? It was bloody flipping brilliant. Yes, there will always be tremendous room for excursions into electronic sound as conducted with furrowed brows and stroked beards, but this weekend I learned that my “bread and butter” is served with a hefty slice of pickups and plectrums. Which reminds me -

2. Josh Homme Is A Really Nice Man

Yes, so enamoured was I by the majesty of rock that I caved and decided to let my weekend go out with a bang. The laser-enhanced Queens Of The Stone Age were a force of nature. So intense, intricate and brutal were their jams that the plaid-wearer in me was never not going to be thrilled, but having heard so much bad about the walking sneer that is Josh Homme, I was stunned to find him to actually be a really, really nice man. He seemed genuinely pleased to be onstage and absolutely delighted to play for us. His jokes were lewd but often swung endearing close to “dad” territory (“I saw a couple of guys dressed as fuckin' bananas. I guess they split”). I fully believed his statement that they'd never forget that night, and they more than delivered on their promise to give us a show that we'd never forget.

3. Mr. E Knows Exactly What He's Doing

In Sunday's blistering heat, a spin through their painfully aching back catalogue might not have provided a convincing case for Eels to be the ideal band to play at sunset. But when they took to the stage with a pair of uniformed horn players in tow and proceeded to treat us to nuanced arrangements of the more upbeat offerings from their canon, suddenly the planets aligned. The usually claustrophobic, terrifying Flyswatter was given such a summery revamp that the uninitiated might have mistaken it for a song about fishing during a carnival, or something. The Man Called E also confirmed himself to be one of the strangest and funniest men in rock. Such screams as “You have a nice smile!” came between songs, and his band introductions were utterly hysterical.

4. I Know What Bliss Looks And Tastes Like

It looks like a panoramic view of a sunkissed valley teaming with people dedicated to having the best time it is possible to have whilst inhabiting human skin set to the gently lilting sounds of Sea of Bees. It tastes like chargrilled Jamaican jerk chicken served with fried rice and kidney beans washed down with a cold beer. Bliss is also best spent in the company of people who you'd proudly profess to “bloody love”. Which it was. All weekend.

5. If You Want To Have Fun, It's Impossible Not To

Never mind the biblical downpours which greeted our arrival on Wednesday morning which ensured that we had to hastily erect our tents in freezing torrents and sit shivering in them for hours afterwards whilst we waited for the sky to clear, our clothes to dry and our fatigue to lift. By mid-afternoon we were sprawled on the grass drinking festival-strength pear-cider. We had arrived. And never mind that it took me some 11.5 hours to get home. What matters is that I was there. Glastonbury has tremendous potential to make you smile even when it seems that absolutely everything is conspiring against you. Case in point – our Welsh companion had some £150 stolen from his tent. He simply thus concluded that he therefore had to have an extra £150 worth of fun. Would that he and I and everyone could take the same approach to the rest of our lives.

6. Festivals Can Be Very, Very Cheap

I'm quite poor at the moment, but at no point did I feel destitute over the weekend. At no point did I feel as though my insolvency was having a negative impact upon my potential to enjoy myself. In fact, I managed to survive on around £100 for the entire five day weekend. The trick is to take lots of apples, bananas and cereal bars, to drink milk in the morning and to only eat when you feel hungry (as opposed to “whenever you pass a food vendor with a nice smile”, as has been my M.O in previous years). Also, the almost-intolerable hangover I suffered on Thursday morning served to scupper my alcohol intake for the rest of the weekend, which was a further ease on my spending. This also lead to the realisation that:

7. I Don't Have To Be Drunk Or Drinking To Enjoy Myself

See above. Though this one comes as an almighty relief, I'd quite like a glass of whatever Guy Garvey's having, thanks.

8. TV On The Radio Are To Be Respected And Feared
Paul Simon was a horrible disappointment. Stood in an immobile crowd in the baking heat (they weren't even rudely talking amongst themselves! They just were), we strained to hear him mumble his way through apparently endless meandering blues jams as opposed to dipping into one of the strongest repertoires in music. Also, so hasty were we to reach him that I fell face-first into the mud. Disappointed and alienated, we instead decided to watch TV On The Radio – a band I'd previously not really listened to and therefore had no real intention of watching. Well, their set was one of those incredible “revelation” things for which us music fans always yearn. The opening swathes of Young Liars provided every ounce of salvation I had expected from Mr. Simon. Before long, everything was OK again, and by the end of their uplifting, hyperkinetic and utterly vital set, they were covering Ray Parker Jnr.'s Ghostbusters. I left with a “new” band to “check out”. There are few greater feelings.

9. The King Of Limbs Was Written To Be Played Live

Due to severe problems with the crowd, Radiohead's surprise Friday set was far from a weekend highlight for me. I must stress, though, that my disappointment has absolutely nothing to do with the band. They offered tight, mercurial, majestic elegance which served to remind me as to why I still insist that they're my favourite band. It was an immense honour to find myself prithee to the live debuts of such songs which were, apparently, so difficult to replicate live that they had to recruit an auxiliary drummer. His name's Clive, and Thom was right, we love him already. When I wasn't struggling to see and hear them amongst a desperately impatient crowd, I was able to marvel at how incredible has been their evolution from grunge also-rans through Britpop saviours and world-conquering, genre-defying and defining luminaries to the taut and groovy peerless jazz-blues elder-statesmen that they've become today. The material from The King of Limbs which so dominated the set sounds awesome live – and any “reporter” who insists that the crowd was disappointed by the lack of “hits” is obviously spouting piffle in the interests of pursuing tired and tedious iconoclastic copy – from where I was standing, they were loving it.

10. The Realisation That There Will Be No Glastonbury Next Year Is Rather Like Realising That There'll Be No Christmas

Wes Anderson's Rushmore teaches us that the secret to happiness may lie in finding something that we enjoy doing and to keep on doing it. Well, for me that seems to be going to Glastonbury. It's utopia, nirvana, Brigadoon and Christmas all rolled into one. And it's not taking place next year.

Which makes me wonder: Just what the hell are we all going to do with ourselves next summer? Just like Halloween wouldn't act as a substitute for Christmas, I doubt that simply opting for a different festival would be enough to sate me.

It might well be the case that we'll just have to unite and try our utmost to create our own positivity.

And there you go – a beautiful lesson for life – make your own wonder. We can change the world and happiness is possible – just so long as we're nice to each other.

Until 2013, then.

Part Five - Relief Rainfall

This is the last instalment of the list I've been making of my favourite albums of 2010. Whilst the list has been in no particular order, the five featured in this post quite possibly constitute my five favourite albums of the year.

Villagers – Becoming A Jackal

For dimly lit haunted rooms encrimsoned which reek of incense and red wine – this is music which feels as though it was written to provide musical accompaniment to a séance. I was expecting folk pleasantries. The reality was much darker and much, much more satisfying. It glows and burns like untended embers.

His voice and style was compared to Bright Eyes. It reminds me more of Grizzly Bear – albeit it's steeped in ghostly Victoriana as opposed to rustic Americana. These tracks are gloomy and brooding, but there's a thrilling looseness to “Ship Of Promises” and such bright choruses and refrains in “That Day” as to have a similar effect to the sun peeking through grey clouds – momentary relief, dries the rain.

The only possible criticism that could be levied is that things sound a little too polished – this is the sort of music which would really benefit from a raw and swampy mix achieved through recording live with but one mic in the room. In this way, the album achieved a status shared with only the finest of releases: after but a few listens I was already yearning for a sequel.

Beach House – Teen Dream

Recently, whilst my brother and I were shopping, some kind of interstellar Sly & The Family Stone jam lilted its way from an instore sound system with such brash energy as to inspire unconscious head-nodding in everyone within earshot. It was followed by Beach House's chiming “Real Love” - which came across as a soft and lilting echo when compared to the freak-out which preceded.

“I love this song,” I said. Because I do.
“I prefer Sly & The Family Stone,” said my brother.
“Well, I prefer this.”
“But,” said my brother. “If you had to listen to just one band for the rest of your life, it would be Sly & The Family Stone, wouldn't it? Not Beach House.”

Well. I'll say now what I said then. Whereas the music of Sly is perhaps objectively better, if, in an unlikely hypothetical situation, I were forced to choose but one band to take with me to the grave, out of the options given I would, without hesitation, plumb for Beach House.

The reason for this is simple. Most of my time is spent sleeping, wishing I were sleeping, trying not to leave the house, drinking tea, writing, reading and sleeping. The music of Beach House, then, might not set my world alight in the way only Sly and his cohorts could, but it's so much more apt and comforting.

Lush, plaintive, melancholic, wistful, desperate, gorgeous. Songs like “Silver Soul”, “Norway” and “Take Care” are exactly the sort of intensely sad, yearning yet redemptive anthems which form my bread and butter. What I'm trying to say is: This is very much my bag, baby.

The National – High Violet

Desperate times call for desperate music – and none sound more desperate than The National. It's the musical equivalent of “just getting on with things” - and, as anybody who's ever witnessed any degree of tragedy second-hand will attest, sometimes there's nothing sadder than “just getting on with things”.

Imagine romantic, cinematic grandeur mixed with such heartfelt pathos which can only come from those who have lived through absolutely everything they so beautifully sing set to exactly the sort of exultant defiance for which Springsteen is adored – in The National we truly have a band to treasure for life. Long may be their reign.

Joanna Newsom – Have One On Me

It's the ultimate rebuttal of the tedious “album as dead artform” argument – not just a double but a triple disc set which features absolutely nothing that could be considered as “filler” or as worthy of cutting which flows so beautifully as to make gorging on all three discs in one sitting a desirable and enthralling experience as opposed to a slog or a marathon whilst simultaneously providing such wonderful, endlessly replayable passages that to simply skim the surface is also a very real possibility.

Have One On Me is a gift of a release – the best fifteen pounds one might ever spend – an artefact to be treasured with such a physical presence as to radiate warmth even on those rare occasions where you can tear yourself away for long enough to not listen.

Like the best books I've ever read, this is absorbing and transcendent – not so much heard as inhabited – and I'm at every bit of a loss when proceedings draw to a close. What I love is the way it's paced like all good trilogies. The first disc is perhaps the only one which would work as a standalone album. The second is much darker, much sadder – whilst the third, although providing much in the way of drama, comes to a warm and satisfying conclusion which serves to tie everything up perfectly.

Here you have the most marvellous, meticulous, creative and varied arrangements of the year; the most intriguing, poetic and sprawling lyrics which are all sung so beautifully. The modern world doesn't seem to allow for genius to exist; it seems intent on detecting flaws in everything. Nothing's perfect and everything is to be reduced to cold, hard, scientific logic. To have this album in my life, however, makes me feel as though the world perhaps isn't so base, so cold, so cruel.

Arcade Fire – The Suburbs

In a year in which so, so many releases have spellbound, captivated and endeared, it felt only right that my list of favourites should be in no order. Be that as it may, were I forced at rapier-point by some kind of curious lunatic to pick one album as my absolute favourite, I think I'd choose The Suburbs.

My reasoning is simple: It's yet to be proven otherwise that every single one of my friends loves this album. After their stunning live sets at the 2005 Reading and Leeds Festivals, the NME, for once, penned something so inspired as to stick with me. They said that the band's set was such a unifying experience that people weren't so much comparing their favourite bands of the weekend as their favourite songs from Arcade Fire's set.

I know that not everyone will consider this their favourite album of the year. Still, however, I feel as though it's created a rare sense of unity. That which really endears me is that everyone seems to have their favourite song. Mine's the sweetly pulsating “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)”, but I've also heard variously “Ready To Start”, “Empty Room”, “City With No Children” and “We Used To Wait” identified as standouts and favourites. This is an inevitable result of an album full of sixteen unforgettable, beautifully written, beautifully sung, beautifully played and beautifully realised songs. In one way or another they speak to and for everyone. I cannot think of an album since The Strokes' Is This It which has so apparently enthralled most everyone I know.

The really exciting part is in anticipating as to where they might go from here. Arcade Fire feel like “our” band and, at the moment, they seem immortal, as though they can do no wrong. It is therefore with no hesitation that I dispel the highest plaudits I can think of: That this must be what it was like to be a Radiohead fan in 1997.



TO BE FORGOTTEN

Part Four - The Penultimate Part Of This Awful Folly

Part four of five of my list of my favourite albums of 2010.

Laurie Anderson – Homeland

An aching, searing eulogy for the American Dream itself; a dark and gloomy concept album concerning the credit crunch; barbed and witty performance poetry set to a backdrop of throat singers, squalling free jazz, keyboard drones, techno beats and a very specially “treated” violin. Whilst young musicians everywhere, apparently horrified by the world around them, are looking inwards and backwards; it takes a middle aged veteran to write such songs based upon the terrible mess that she sees before her. That the album is such a foreboding and confusing listen says it all: The feel to dominate the album is one of unerring dread.

Without a doubt two songs form the gravitational hub of this book of fear and loathing: The eleven minute pitch-shifted drones of “Another Day In America” and the irresistibly catchy pounding “Only An Expert” which features the stellar electronics of Kieran Hebden and the searing guitar work of husband and legend Lou Reed. Somehow, both of these tracks together manage to sum up most everything that's wrong in the western world in 2010.

Yet, despite the chilling apocalyptic nature of the album, Laurie's sense of humour is always present and her tone is one of weariness rather than resignation. That's to say that there's still, apparently, hope. That she's by no means proclaiming us as doomed is something of a comfort – though her plaintive sigh that we're reaching for the stars which she thought indestructible in “Another Day...” is disquietingly ominous.

The ultimate testament to this album's worth, though, is NME's 0/10 review which petulantly moaned that they didn't understand it and that only pretentious and boring people will. Plaudits rarely come higher.

Badly Drawn Boy – It's What I'm Thinking pt.1: Photographing Snowflakes

The Hour Of Bewilderbeast was the first album I ever loved and, since then, I've been following Badly Drawn Boy as closely as is possible without incurring some kind of restraining order. That's to say that I'm a fan.

The news, then, that he'll be releasing no less than three albums over the next year was an almighty boon for me. My excitement only intensified after I became prithee to the sheer quality of the material as can be found within the first part of the imminent trilogy.

Photographing Snowflakes is a magical album. One of the first things sang by the man on the first song on his first album I've always taken as something of a statement of intent - “To put a little bit of sunshine in your life”. Every single one of his albums has, so far, delivered on this promise.

His music possesses a welcoming cosiness – his voice is as comforting as a pair of old shoes. This is, perhaps, the most intimate of all of his releases to date. All is bathed in a hazy reverb which makes the album perfect listening for such nights where it's bitingly cold outside yet warm and glowing within.

Autechre – Oversteps

Every album I've heard by these guys has managed to sound unique not just in terms of their oeuvre but also in terms of music itself. Nobody sounds quite like them, and no two releases sound quite the same. Hallmarks both of a group to treasure.

I found 2008's Quaristice to be stunning – small snippets of rhythmic mayhem and ambient beauty which, combined, made for a fluent, challenging and ultimately rewarding listening experience. All preliminary investigation indicated that Oversteps would prove to be their most accessible album yet. I wasn't quite expecting an Autechre “pop” album, but even so, such claims I initially found baffling.

All first impressions with Autechre are of bafflement. But still, when I hear this album today and am presented once again with such sublime rhythms and textures that would happily soundtrack the parts of my subconscious mind of which I'm proudest – it's hard to believe the extent to which I was initially unimpressed.

Never underestimate, friends, the power of repeat listening. So often has it been said that nobody really “enjoys” the music of Autechre. Rather, they “admire” it. Whilst I've never really found that to be the case (I don't listen to anything I don't enjoy), all the same I can appreciate this sentiment. However, I firmly believe it to be the case that even those most alienated by their past works might find something to “enjoy” here. Hell, they might even find something to love.

It's hardly their most “accessible” album, and it's far from their “pop” album – things are as skewed, machinic and alien as ever. But still, the dark world as conjured by these genius textures is one which I'm happy to inhabit for the hour or so of playing time. So happy, in fact, that a genuine despondency is felt when things finally begin to draw to a close. It's like I don't want to leave.

Never underestimate, friends, the power of repeat listening.

Liars – Sisterworld

The special edition of this album allows for you to peek through the keyhole on the cover to see a stretching vista of trees. Whilst the grim rackets and eerie soundscapes which make up this album are far from pastoral, all the same it seems to be an album about escaping to alternate worlds. The lush forest into which you can gaze inspire yearning once you immerse yourself in the rain-soaked streets, dark attics and crumbling dereliction conjured up by these twisted songs.

From the botched murder of “Scissor”, the stifling, suffocating domesticity of “The Overachievers” to the murderous cleansing in the utterly terrifying “Scarecrows On A Killer Slant”, this is a vision of hell. It's loud, dissonant and very, very bleak.

But to escape to the sisterworld as suggested by the title – that's aspirational. That's beautiful. The reason as to why this music never comes across as too ugly or oppressive is because you know that never are they revelling in or glorifying the darkness. Rather, they seem to be desperately attempting to crawl away from it. Ultimately, then, this is an album of transcendence – and transcendence is very nearly achieved on such vitriolic jams as “Proud Evolution” or “Too Much Too Much”.

Combining, as it does, the dark witchcraft rituals of They Were Wrong So We Drowned with the acerbic guitar shreds of their eponymous offering, this is quite possibly the best album Liars have ever produced. Thrillingly dark like binging on horror films with the lights out.

Grinderman – Grinderman 2

The first Grinderman album, sounding, as it did, like a desperate midlife crisis, must have been treated by some as something of a joke. A joke which rocked and rocked hard and good, but a joke nonetheless. I didn't quite know what to make of it in the context of Nick Cave's other pursuits. All I knew was that it rocked and rocked hard and good; and that, with Mr. Cave at the helm, we could depend upon the highest calibre of wordplay and witticisms.

But Grinderman 2 is so good as to suggest a very real depth and longevity to that which might once have been treated as at best a side project and, at worst, a joke. It isn't quite an opportunity for Mr. Cave to let his hair down in terms of volume, aggression or sleaze. This man first came to prominence in The Birthday Party, and his work with The Bad Seeds is littered with such caustic filth as “Scum”, “Stagger Lee”, “Hiding It All Away” and “Hard On For Love”. Rather, it feels like a thrilling exercise in raw spontaneity and improvisation. I hear that Bad Seeds albums are laboured over for months – with most of the songwriting taking place at a desk. Nothing but a cramped and sweaty rehearsal space lit, perhaps, by a red lightbulb could give birth to such vicious storms of throbbing medieval intent as can be found in the first three tracks on this album.

Whilst it's true that there is nothing here as immediately appealing and as endlessly hysterical as “No Pussy Blues”, neither was there anything as at once so utterly bizarre and so strangely touching on the first Grinderman album as “Palaces Of Montezuma”. Also, the searing fire of “Kitchenette” and “Heathen Child” are enough to suggest that these guys are getting better at doing whatever the hell it is they're doing. And they were already the masters. Roman Deities, you could say.

If the next Grinderman album is this good, I just might be forced to start taking them as seriously as I do The Bad Seeds.


TO BE CONCLUDED

Part Three - Actually, This Isn't Going So Badly.

This is part three of my list of my favourite albums of 2010. Did I mention that this list is in no particular order?

Prince Rama – Shadow Temple

Utilising little more than intricate polyrhythmic percussion, vintage synths and the utterly transcendent power of the human voice in all its forms (from guttural moans to rhapsodic shrieks), here we have an album of psychedelic incantations so dripping in liquid magick as to be worthy of soundtracking Kenneth Anger's “Inauguration of The Pleasure Dome”.

In too short a space of time chants, melodies and rhythms compete with each other for dominance in a fiery roar of noise which sounds as though it were recorded live from the base of an erupting volcano. You do, of course, get the impression that human sacrifices are being willingly cast into said volcano with the attention of honouring or appeasing some kind of fire deity.

The closest sonic parallels I've yet drawn are the mechanical gotterdemmerung of Magma and the eerie insanity of Amon Duul 2. However, where the jams of both bands radiate the sort of mystic evil which is beyond our simple minds to ever comprehend, Prince Rama instead sound like they're in the throes of ecstasy having witnessed the goddess descending.

The Bees – Every Step's A Yes

I don't think I read a single review of this superlative release which didn't, in one way or another, touch upon the “fact” that few people seem to care for the existence of The Bees. It is one of the gravest mistakes a music journalist can make to assume that all feel the same as they do: This band mean the world to me.

They seem to emerge every few years with the sole intention of injecting a modicum of sunshine, happiness and well-being into the lives of all who care to listen. But I don't just listen. Avidly and willingly I soak it up.

Whilst there are some sonic hallmarks identifiable on every release, all the same it's fair to say that each of their four albums has served to offer a different listening experience. Where 2007's Octopus simmered in the more laid-back waters of Trojan Records, the sublime jams as showcased on Every Step's A Yes for me recall the more languid, pastoral and hazy offerings from such wizards as Donovan and Forest. Nowhere is this better sampled than on the shimmering “Skill Of The Man” or the utterly gorgeous “Silver Line”.

Of course, this being an album by The Bees, it's perhaps to be expected that you'll find yourself prithee to a whole array of glorious sounds which betray a pure and insatiable love of music on the part of the band; be it the swampy blues of “Winter Rose”, the breezy “Pressure Makes Me Lazy” or the uplifting tropicalia of the Devendra Banhart featuring “Gaia”.

Every time these guys release an album, I feel as though I possess instant access to such music which compliments perfectly those baking hot days whilst proving potent enough to instil such balmy happiness on such days otherwise too cold or too wet for sauntering. Take that, cynics.

Forest Swords – Dagger Paths

The origin of this music wouldn't have even registered as an issue were it not so close to home. Hell, it is home. This guy's a Liverpudlian. Had this not been the case, he could have hailed from absolutely anywhere else and it wouldn't have mattered to me in the slightest – because this is music not of our world.

It occupies simultaneously the darkest and dingiest abysses so deep that light has no hope of penetrating their surface and the divine upper echelons of dreams and consciousness. In its cavernous basslines you see at once every rain-soaked street, rubbish-strewn alley, windswept hill, abandoned quarry and mildewy cave you might ever have encountered. Whereas in the various jarring organs, pianos and guitars – so drenched in reverb as to dominate any space in which they're contained – there are human faces, stabs of light, warm embraces or campfires sheltered from the rain.

And that such transcendent music should harbour such local names as “Hoylake Mist” is remarkable. At once world-embracingly cosmic yet reassuringly intimate, this music is every bit as familiar as it is alien. It is, therefore, quite unlike most anything else I've heard all year.

I Am Kloot – Sky At Night

I bought Elbow's Leaders Of The Free World a few days before I first moved to Manchester some five years ago. Tracks such as “Station Approach”, written about the very streets on which I was in the process of finding my feet, soon became the soundtrack to the part of my life which I have since termed the “coming of age” years.

Well, this fruit's not so much soured as over-ripened. That's to say that it's become too heavy for its branch and has fallen from the tree. It is to fall to such a place which, whilst being close to its roots, is not necessarily once again amongst them. There it will rest awhile before being picked up and taken to further exciting new climates.

And recently, whilst travelling by night on a bus route which has become far too familiar, I used I Am Kloot's Northern Skies as my soundtrack. Specifically during “The Moon Is A Blind Eye” -  unquestionably my favourite track – as I passed by for what I then understood to be one of the last times such familiar places and saw such familiar yet heart-rending scenes as smiles and embraces at bus-stops – I remember thinking – I love this city tonight.

So, where Elbow soundtracked my coming to this city, I Am Kloot have soundtracked my going. It's fitting, then, that the music within should be so wistful, yearning and desperate for both something familiar and something new.

Flying Lotus – Cosmogramma

I'm strongly opposed to any argument which states that “the album”, as an art form, is “dead”. Yes, there are many joys to be had in loading every song you own into an MP3 player and listening in shuffle mode. But how can people continue to hold this misguided view when, year after year, scores upon scores of musicians release work which comes across as more of a “cohesive whole” than as a “collection of MP3s”?

Albums by Flying Lotus strongly support the claim that there's life yet left in “the album” through proving impossible to play by any means other than as a continuous whole. On Cosmogramma, the album is divided into “tracks” seemingly more because it's a done thing than because there exists on this album something as arbitrary as a “track”. Everything blends and bleeds into each other with such mercurial insanity that to even attempt to pick a “favourite song” is something of an impossibility.

Sure, there are standout “moments” amidst the maelstrom – not least Thom Yorke's ghostly turn on “...And The World Laughs With You” - but these are only “moments” in the same way that one recalls certain scenes or lines of dialogue from a film. Rarely will you consume a film in anything other than one sitting. Cosmogramma is no different. It's a journey; an experience; the soundtrack to the best film never made – and every other cliché dished out to particularly transcendent works such as this. In reference to the latter, though, stuff this crazily hyperactive and intense would be fit to soundtrack nothing less than the whoozy and soul-destroying drug-addled spiritual epic “Enter The Void” - but even those retina-searing visuals would be so tame for these sounds that one would feel the need to add the dreadful suffix of “on acid” to proceedings in order to even come close to the desired effect.

“Like the cosmic soundtrack to Enter The Void – on acid” is my terrible, hackneyed summation of this album, then. I'm not proud of such a asinine remark, but little else seems to do in the face of such a kyperkinetic rush of space-addled insanity. This packs more ideas than Coldcut's seminal 70 Minutes Of Madness Mix into a shorter space of time and ultimately offers a far more rewarding listening experience. And it's all the work of one man. Fear him.


MORE NEXT TIME.

Continuing The Spiralling Descent Into Misery

Part Two of my list of my favourite albums of 2010 which, I repeat, is in no particular order.

Roky Erickson & Okkervil River – True Love Cast Out All Evil

So intensely personal that things, at some points, become more than a little disquieting. Nowhere is this more true than on the opening “Devotional Number One”. Recorded on equipment so lo-fi as to be outstripped by a wax cylinder, it features a scratchy backing band culled from Roky's inmates during his stints in care. Amongst their ranks, it is reckoned, is a serial rapist and some guy who threw a woman off a bridge. It sounds like an illict transmission from the darkest corner of the world – and yet, undeniably there's plaintive hope in his voice – before all becomes swallowed by overpowering feedback – as openings go, this one leaves me feeling cold, perturbed and uncomfortable.

The following “Ain't Blues Too Sad”, however, is a short but sweet hand on the shoulder which has an identical impact as a warm cup of tea after a walk through a storm. Roky's voice ages some thirty years between these two tracks. As it sounds today it's rich, cracked and heartbreaking.

This album is devastating, but that's not to say that it's to be avoided should you find yourself in a fragile state of mind. In Roky's poignant, plaintive laments you'll find very real comfort, for never is hope far from the equation; not even when he's desperately pleading, presumably on his knees, before the dock in the stirring and affecting “Please Judge”.

Okkervil River act more as curators than as collaborators. I've not heard much of their music, but their polite, unobtrusive and simple backing tracks (and brilliantly insightful liner notes) act as something of a dusty canvas on which Roky can daub enough of himself to ensure that this is his story, nobody else's. Though occasionally they allow for feedback and white noise to interfere with the prevailing beauty, rather than ruining affairs this merely acts as something of a reminder that these are the thoughts of a most troubled mind indeed. In no way can we even begin to relate to that which Roky's endured, but the turmoil is there and impossible to ignore. That it's all but overcome by hope and positivity is miraculous, life-affirming stuff.

Gil Scott-Heron – I'm New Here

The liner notes request that you listen all the way through, without distractions. It would be rude not to. In doing so, you're treated to a listening experience which might be short (just shy of even thirty minutes), but is nevertheless brutally honest, stirringly intimate, uncomfortably claustrophobic yet ultimately redemptive. Its brevity merely ensures that immediate repeat listens are something of a necessity.

I picture our esteemed orator sat on a stool before a microphone in some back-alley jazz club lit only by neon cast in a blue haze on account of the chain of cigarettes through which he's ploughing. His face is a deep frown as he reads aloud from crinkled papers yellowed from his prison stints. It's possible to read in his gravelly voice such experiences only otherwise betrayed by such deep crags as can be found in the faces of those who have seen too much. Yet our esteemed orator's not done yet. No matter how tired he might sound, there's still a vibrancy in his growls and a bite in his words which is such that all sat before him are rapt to the point that they neglect their lit cigarettes which, unsmoked, burn right down to the filter unnoticed.

Where did the night go, indeed? I don't think I ever want to leave.

Pantha Du Prince – Black Noise

In a year full of fantastic collaborations – Lou Reed with Gorillaz, Thom Yorke with Flying Lotus – it's Noah Lennox, alias Panda Bear, whose turn on "Stick To My Side" might make the least amount of noise but, for me at least, has the greatest impact. You see, this is music which I hear in my sleep. It seeps inside almost unnoticed – a benevolent audio virus if ever there was one – and stews and throbs in the part of the brain apparently most dedicated to wistfulness and nostalgia. Pantha Du Prince plants the seeds, but it's left to the listener to allow for them to grow.

These delicate, minimalist and meticulous compositions seem specifically tailored for headphones, incense and darkened rooms, and it's in such contexts that they sound best. However, the mind cannot help but conjure such vistas which, though contained, stretch for miles: Caverns lit by crystals glowing blue; light stabbing through lush green canopies and all but failing to penetrate all the way to the forest floor below through which you pace so tentatively. You can almost taste the fresh pine-scented air – and it's such air that's so fresh as to cold-sting your city-choked lungs.

This is pure escapism, and few retreats from the chaotic pace of modern life with which I so struggle to keep pace are sweeter than the gorgeous “Welt Am Draht” - a piece whose muted chorale sounds come across as an ancient ode to a mercurial forest spirit – essential in every sense of the word. I need music this distanced from everything else. I need transcendent music to live.

Four Tet – There Is Love In You

Not since the curious “No More Mosquitoes” on Pause have vocals played such a large role in Four Tet's music. Sweetly looped female sighing croons form almost the entirety of the melody of the opening “Angel Echoes”. Like the dusty opening monologue of an Oliver Postgate show, they instantly pull the shutters down on the world around and and instead invite you into a warm, cosy, intimate and subdued universe in which to spend any amount of time is enough to restore your sanity in the face of all that apparently strives to rid you of it.

It's hard not to think of the album in terms of the stunning nine minute alien broadcast that is “Love Cry”, but all that comes after offers thrills that might be less visceral but are no less vital – be it the sweet cyclical arpeggios of the aptly named “Circling” or the soft and scratchy jazz of “This Unfolds” which serves to leave the sweetest possible taste in the mouth.

But it took a tired yet buzzing mind in a cramped room full of surging bodies to recognise that the likes of “Sing” and “Plastic People” are veritable club anthems every bit as potent and galvanising as the finest offerings from Orbital. It would sound fantastic accompanied by lasers before an adoring crowd of thousands on a pyramid shaped stage – but the almost clandestine feel of the live experience as it stands is perhaps a lot more appropriate.

Caribou – Swim

To say that Caribou have “gone electro” would be every bit as inadvisable as saying that Neil Young has, over the years, moved away from guitars. Mathematically considered electronic composition has played a huge role in every Caribou release – be it the organic motorik industrial jazz of The Milk of Human Kindness or the sun-drenched psychedelica of Andorra.

So, no, this isn't Caribou's “electronic” album. It is, however, their most club-orientated offering to date – the album to which its easiest to dance. Hell, it's not just “easy”. Rather, it's almost impossible to resist. Who are you to refrain from at least nodding along with an immense grin plastered across your glowing face whilst grooving to the propulsive and transient “Sun” which radiates as much warmth and well-being as the entity from which it takes its name? Who are you to even attempt to refrain from churning with eyes closed so blissfully to the strummed harp which transforms, as if by magic, to a peal of bells in the too-good-to-be-true “Bowls”?

Conceived as an attempt to record music which sounded as though it was underwater, there is a melting fluidity and mercurial quality to these meticulous compositions which is, apparently, exactly what I've been looking for all along in music. To suddenly stumble across it in such lush and glorious technicolour was such a shock to the system that my initial reaction was never going to be anything other than bemusement. However, as the title suggests, these are sounds in which it's necessary to immerse yourself completely in order to fully appreciate. This is exactly the kind of energising electronic music which so often serves to make life feel not just bearable, but positively joyous.


TO BE FURTHERED

Second Annual Terrible Summation of Creeping Dread

Yes, I'm about to write about my favourite albums of 2010. This is a terrible idea and I really should quit now while I'm ahead. I did this last year and nearly lost it completely – so to speak. It wasn't so much that I was dreading the notion that people might disagree with my choices (for that I'd need a readership). Rather, I was terrified of coming across as lordy or judgemental or sanctimonious or pretentious or – well. I was, essentially, terrified of coming across all Quietus or Pitchfork on you. You know what they're like - “We're right, you're wrong. This is the way things are and if you disagree, not only are you wrong, you're a mutant. Go die in a fire.”

To that end, I'm prefacing this episodic list with the same disclaimer I affix to most everything I write: Nothing I ever say, do, think or dream will ever be “definitive”. These aren't “the best albums of 2010”. They're my favourite albums of 2010. Few of them are “in”, almost none of them are “cool” and I've long since given up on even vaguely attempting to capture anything approaching a “Zeitgeist”. No, let's leave all that to those for whom music must, for whatever reason, perform functions beyond, you know, entertaining or enthralling or escapism. These are albums which, in one way or another, I loved. OK? OK.

And because I'm finding myself increasingly pissed off by the notion that something as personal, objective, universal, mercurial and beautiful as music can be defined by such tedious earthly notions as categorisation and ratings (how the hell do Pitchfork justify the decimal places in their scores?), this list is in no order. I am merely writing about the albums as they come to me – in instalments of five. At the very least, this saves me the headache of deciding which albums are the “more betterer”.

Right. That's the catchphrases out of the way. Let's go.

Oceansize – Self Preserved While The Bodies Float Up

If not the best opening trio of songs on any album of the year, few pack more of a punch. “Part Cardiac” is a pummelling torrent of sludgy doom which suggests that the band have spent the past few years immersed in the Southern Lord back catalogue. And yet, it sounds not like some kind of cheap imitation. Rather, it's so worthy a homage that they'd do well to consider an entire album's worth of such brooding gloomy intensity.

“SuperImposer” is more standard Oceansize fare – which is to say that it sounds quite unlike anyone else out there. Loose and sprawling yet so tight and densely layered that whilst on initial listens it sounds like a soupy mess, repeat listens reveal such patterns and structural nuances that it soon becomes apparent that this is a most beautiful soup indeed. Then comes the blizzard fury of “Build Us A Rocket Then...”, in which drummer Mark Heron proves himself the worthy successor to Neil Peart's title of “most ridiculously proficient drummer” through effortlessly pounding out such rhythms by hand as Autechre painstakingly create using their malevolent machinery.

With the exception of the hypercharged and brilliant “It's My Tail And I'll Chase It If I Want To”, the remainder of the album offers a more sedate pace to this opening barrage. “Oscar Acceptance Speech” shifts from its plodding trip-hop leanings into such lush strings that recall nothing less than “Purple Rain” itself. It's every bit as transcendent. “Ransoms”, in its sparsity, would be identified as a career highlight were it to appear on an album by Low.

To sum up, whilst all that came before might accurately be labelled as “prog”, this is, without question, progression.

Vampire Weekend – Conta

Through offering an uninterrupted succession of endlessly listenable, life-affirmingly happifying and insanely catchy songs, Vampire Weekend's debut these days for me plays like the greatest hits collection of a band so inventive as to offer a genuine breath of fresh air amongst the prevailing stodge.

It isn't uncommon for debut albums to offer such listening experiences. It's rare, however, for this to be every bit the case with sophomore offerings. But Contra delivers, and does so to such an extent that I think I can be forgiven for deploying such an American collegiate term as “sophomore”. Especially since this is Vampire Weekend we're talking about.

But in making a reference to American colleges, I did that which one is apparently obliged to do when writing about Vampire Weekend: I brought class and privilege into the equation. For some, such notions are enough to render their entire oeuvre unlistenable. Well, it's their unfortunate, pretentious and misguided loss: with music this energising and vibrant, such tedious trappings shouldn't matter. And they don't. They really, really don't.

But it's live where these compositions really shine. Their shows come across as a dazzling party to which all have been invited. Rather than watering the experience down with filler (as subsequent releases can do), the release of Contra has only served to ensure that their parties last longer than they did previously. Which, obviously, is a very good thing indeed.

The Hold Steady – Heaven Is Whenever

Upon its release, I got the impression that critics were willing for this album to be terrible. It would have made for such interesting copy: After a tentative debut comes a string of three albums which can arguably be identified as classics, after which the bubble could be said to have burst. The departure of multi-instrumentalist Franz Nicolay would have made such boring rhetoric all the richer – they could have labelled him as “the one with all the tunes” and blamed the subsequent slump on the loss of his influence.

But instead we were treated to yet another album of such anthemnic rock literature that perfectly soundtracks all that is important about life – love, music, friends, alcohol – with gusto, aplomb and fiery passion. Apparently not knowing what to make of it, the critics lazily bandied about such terms as “one trick ponies” and moved on.

However, I kept listening. I allowed, once again, for The Hold Steady to soundtrack my life. And, once again, I found it to be a most enthralling and empowering experience. Yeah, maybe they have got but one trick in their bag, but I stand firm in my conviction that there are few contemporary lyricists more accomplished than Craig Finn. His words are at once tragic yet hilarious and are targeted directly at the part of the brain labelled “right there, man; right there”. My lyric of the year can be found in "The Weekenders": “The theme of the party was the industrial age/You came in as a trainwreck”.

Franz's absence is perhaps worst felt in the synthesised choirs at the end of the title track (he would have thought of something better), but this is forgiven: The central conceit of the song - and, indeed, of the album itself – is beautiful: “Heaven is whenever/We can get together/Lock your bedroom door/ And listen to your records”. Aw. Right there, man; right there.

Steve Mason – Boys Outside

So many of the singers from my favourite bands released a solo album this year. Steve Mason's Boys Outside I anticipated the most, and I don't think I've ever been less disappointed.

Some treated this as his first solo offering – in doing so completely disregarding his work as King Biscuit Time and The Black Affair. This is, however, his first release under his own name – but such a move was apparently only made in the interests of simplifying matters when Mr. Mason realised that he had three or four Myspace profiles operating at once.

Though sonically it's got more in common with his Beta Band roots than has anything he's done since 2004, this is, without a doubt, the most mature album he's ever released. That's to say that it's utterly heartbreaking. Witness his pleas to “the children that [he] never had” in “I Let Her In”, or the plaintive lament that “the things I've seen in my life would make you cry” in the devastating title track.

But, like all of my favourite music, it's always possible to drop back a layer and simply allow for things to wash over you – to bask contentedly in such warm and blissful washes of beauty as “All Come Down”. The choruses of “Am I Just A Man” and “Lost and Found” instil a feeling which is akin to nothing less than familiarising yourself with an old friend thought lost.

To truly appreciate these songs, though, I believe it's necessary to catch Mr. Mason live. I would, in fact, welcome a stripped down, “unplugged” mix of this album, though “Boys Outside Naked” sounds a bit too homoerotic. We'll just have to settle for the imminent dub mix, then, which I'm sure will be awesome.

Kudos also to the cover art – plain black plastic on which it's impossible not to leave your own fingerprint blemishes ensure that no two copies of this album will be the same – a perfectly fitting move for such an intensely personal album.

Massive Attack – Heligoland

Most of the criticism of this album seemed to stem from the fact that it sounds too much like Massive Attack. In their typically asinine way, Pitchfork seemed to pan it for failing to embrace dub-step.

All failed to appreciate the fact that such music as offers instant gratification soon stales. I believe that the best music is that which keeps its tricks hidden – the sort of music with which only prolonged stewing will reveal the brilliance within. This is certainly the case with Massive Attack. Perhaps the reason as to why such long periods exist between their releases is because the band consider that such extensive spells are necessary to fully appreciate their work.

And so, some eight months or so beyond its initial release, all that initially bemused or disappointed now sounds fantastic. They remain peerless. Even “Splitting The Atom”, which I originally found to be plodding and unfocused, now serves to perfectly evoke a sinister haunted pier-end carnival drenched in a thick and ghostly fog. Similarly, whilst I attribute a lot of my subsequent appreciation of “Psyche” to its spectral video (my favourite of the year), even stripped of its visuals its mournful arpeggios create exactly the sort of melancholic unease in which I take great pleasure languishing.

I would have said that it'll never compare to the heady highs of Protection and Mezzanine had I not once thought exactly the same of the criminally underrated 100th Window. In fact, at this juncture, the only misstep seems to be the Guy Garvey collaboration “Flat Of The Blade”, if only because it too closely resembles Thom Yorke's excellent “Cymbal Rush”. But that's what repeat listens are for – it, like all of the album, remains thrillingly hazy, cinematic, tense and claustrophobic. It's like they never went away.


TO BE CONTINUED

What Makes A Good Live Album?

I recently obtained a copy of R.E.M's “39 Songs” album. Released late last year, it's comprised of the finest cuts from five successive nights at Dublin's Olympia. Right at the start, Michael Stipe insists through a megaphone that “this is not a show”. Rather, the crowd were invited along to what were, to all intents and purposes, live rehearsals. “This is what we do when nobody's looking,” he later says. The shows were organised in order for the band to test out some of their natty new material in a live environment. In doing so, they revisited some of the more obscure offerings from their back catalogue. No “Losing My Religion,” no “Man On The Moon”, no “Everybody Hurts” - but a whole lot of stuff from “Fables Of The Reconstruction”. A casual fan's nightmare; a hardcore fan's nirvana. That said, though, the thirty nine songs as archived on the album – played with such passion and energy – might also be interest for those only familiar with the aforementioned “classics” as a means of investigating as to why they're one of the most cherished bands in the world today.

Not including bonus discs, “39 Songs” is, by my count, R.E.M's second live album. Their first harboured the most unimaginative title of “R.E.M Live” and was released in 2008. It was recorded during the “Around The Sun” tour and, unlike its successor, it does contain such crowd favourites as “Losing My Religion” and “Imitation of Life”. It's no cop-out of a setlist, though. They don't just rely on the big-guns. Indeed, they choose to kick off their set with a duo of quasi-obscure gems from their back catalogue - “I Took Your Name” from “Monster” and “So Fast, So Numb” from “New Adventures In Hi-Fi” - instantly catering very much there for those who love them beyond their singles.

But despite such inspired setlist choices, as a whole the package is rather stale. It's a little too polished and, apart from anything else, just feels somewhat pointless. Anaemic, I'd say. It's not the songs. No. These are some of the finest songs to have been written by any band. It's just the way they're played – perfectly. It's a little workmanlike and, despite a mildly different gravity to the sound, there's very little indeed to separate these recordings from their studio counterparts.

The same cannot be said of “39 Songs”. Compared to “R.E.M Live”, “39 Songs” feels like a real gift for the fans. A Christmas treat, as it were. Right in the middle of June. Its appeal is obvious. First, there's the curio-appeal of hearing “Accelerate” material played in such embryonic, unpolished forms. “Supernatural, Supercilious” is still referred to as “Disguise”. “Man-Sized Wreath” is introduced as a future b-side – and there's even room for the unreleased “Staring Down The Barrel of the Middle Distance”. But beyond this new material is a whole lot of obscurities, most of which is plucked from their I.R.S years – plus a few cuts from their very first EP release.

I wondered – by what criteria did they choose their setlists? It soon became obvious, though. They chose to play their personal favourites. “New Test Leper” is introduced somewhat apologetically before it's revealed that it's a song which everyone in the band professes to love. “Feeling Gravity's Pull” is paired with an anecdote concerning the harness Stipe used to wear when performing it. Most moving, however, is the story concerning his grandfather which precedes “Auctioneer”. He used to have his grandchildren place pennies on the rail track before he departed by train. These crushed pennies would then act as a reminder of this absent grandparent. Suddenly, a song which may have appeared particularly incidental in the context of quite a murky album is cast into a whole new life – some twenty-five years after its original release. Powerful.

Beyond even this, though, is the feeling that, onstage, the band are having the time of their lives. Several times Stipe's vocals falter as he stifles a laugh whilst singing. He's apparently using a laptop as a point of reference for remembering the lyrics to songs unperformed for decades; and on several occasions comments upon how little sense they make to him now, and how he's often amused when reading back that which he wrote years ago. The band play with a looseness and energy all but absent on “R.E.M Live”. They may sometimes hit a bum note, but that's part of the appeal. It's the “warts and all” approach which makes this such an essential purchase for any R.E.M fan. This is them at their rawest, but also at their most playful. They're completely exposed. But, guess what? It's not some kind of monster. It's a party.

This got me thinking as to what exactly makes for a “good” live-album. The quality of the material on “R.E.M Live” is proof that it has nothing at all to do with the songs. Rather, I believe it has everything to do with intentions. Sometimes, live-albums are released as contract-fillers. Sometimes they're released as an awful means of milking as much money as is inhumanely possible from a cash cow boon. Sometimes they're released to quench the first for novelty in the down-time between releases. In short, sometimes they're awful, cynical, moribund vehicles for evil with no merit at all. These ones, however, are pretty easy to spot. Usually (though not always) they bear criminally unimaginative titles. “BAND X – LIVE” - look out for those. Also, be wary as to at what point in the band's career these live documents were released. If it were just after their debut album, they're generally to be avoided. If, on the other hand, they are the debut album...

Ultimately, though, the overall quality of a live recording boils down to but one factor – does it make you wish you were there?

I have compiled a list of my favourite live-albums. As is always the case when I compile such lists, there are some disclaimers. I would first like to make it clear that this list does not represent “the best” live-albums. Rather, it represents my favourites. And that's why you'll find no “Who – Live At Leeds” or “James Brown – Live at the Apollo”. It's for the crucial reason that I've not heard them. I know, I know.

Second, it must be stressed that these are all official releases. I'm not including bootlegs. Nor am I including such releases in which the live material came packaged with extra recordings. This is why you won't find Pink Floyd's “Ummagumma” (it came with a disc full of bizarre studio experiments) or the second disc of The Best of The Beta Band (because, obviously, it was the bonus disc on a best of). Most annoyingly, perhaps, is the fact that this disqualifies Big Brother & The Holding Company's “Cheap Thrills” as, apparently, not all of it was recorded live.

No – this list has a very specific criteria. All were released as strictly live-albums, and all create that yearning within – the yearning that I was present at the recording.

They're in no particular order..

Spiritualized – Fucked Up Inside

1998's Royal Albert Hall recordings contain almost the entirety of “Ladies And Gentlemen Were Floating In Space” and are, as such, devastating. But I personally prefer this rare, limited edition release. This is not, I stress, included as a means of winning any kind of “indie cool” points. It's not even as though it's particularly “rare” any more, either. It can be downloaded with ridiculous ease. No blood on my hands.

Rather, it's included because it contains recordings of Spiritualized at their most blissful. Whilst a damaged , desolate rage is never  far away on the Royal Albert Hall recordings, here the band seem quite happy to be floating in space. And, as glorious as the version of “Shine A Light” is on the Royal Albert Hall album, here it's twice as long and contains about seven additional gorgeous minutes of spaced-out meanderings.

You hear stories of Spiritualized gigs from this era where crowd members found themselves so mesmerised that they unconsciously allowed for cigarettes to burn unsmoked right down to the filter. Hearing this, such tales as told in hushed, awed voices are pretty easy to believe.

Lou Reed – Rock'n'Roll Animal

Lou Reed's released quite a few live albums in his day. They're all, in their own individual ways, worth a listen. 2008's document of his “Berlin” shows features a soul-destroying rendition of “Candy Says” with Antony on vocals (and, you know, one of the most harrowing albums ever recorded played in its blistering entirety). 2004's “Animal Serenade” encapsulates perfectly the stately dignity with which his contemporary shows are infused, and 1984's “Live In Italy”, with the help of tearaway guitarist Robert Quine, contains several savage renditions of material which sounds comparatively limp on record. It's here, for instance, where you'll find the ultimate version of “Kill Your Sons”.

1974's “Rock'n'Roll Animal”, however, is a defining release not just in the Lou Reed canon, but also in the entire 1970s rock repertoire. Here the Lou Reed of Transformer/Berlin revisits his Velvet Underground days in leather, black eyeliner and a studded dog collar – and a backing band potent enough to strip the paint from the walls. In order to hear the full set you need, in addition, 2003's “Extended Versions”, but the five tracks which make up the original release – and the additional few cuts from the CD remaster – are sufficient in themselves. It's certainly the most terrifying version of “Heroin” ever recorded.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Live Seeds

Remember how I suggested that it's perhaps the pragmatics that separate the “good” live albums from their cynical counterparts? Very good example, here. 1992's “Henry's Dream” is quite rightly lauded as one of Cave's finest. The man himself, however, was famously dissatisfied with its overall sound. To his gargoyle ears it apparently sounded too tame, too polished. Hence, Live Seeds.

Here the “Henry's Dream” material sounds vicious. Strings are replaced with wailing organs, guitars that twanged now crunch and the vocals – snarling and caustic as they were – are rendered somehow even more so. Cave frequently sounds livid, possessed, demonic...I defy you to not quake a little when hearing this version of “Papa Won't Leave You Henry”.

In addition, “The Mercy Seat” is howled with brutal, brooding intensity whilst “The Ship Song” is graced with heart-stopping tenderness. There's even enough room for an unreleased gem in “Plain Gold Ring”.

My Morning Jacket – Okonokos

In which, over the course of two CDs, My Morning Jacket tear and meander through a flawless setlist which flows so beautifully. After a glorious opening trio from “Z” begins the unmistakable cymbal rush opening of “One Big Holiday”. The vocals are screamed with unrestrained euphoria and, by the time we reach the solo, I like to picture the hair of every person in the audience as billowing in the face of the sheer force of nature that is this band in full swing.

This segues wonderfully into “I Will Sing You Songs” - in many ways the polar opposite of that which came before. Where the previous song charged – knocking down all in its path – this one soars languidly and seductively. Immerse yourself in the spaces between the notes; it's hypnotic.

To sum up: Spellbinding.

Hawkwind – Space Ritual

Shorn of the dangerous volumes, the stench of petrol, the intense stroboscopic lights synchronised perfectly with the pummelling bass lines and, of course, the 6ft tall topless dancer painted in day-glo – you could be mistaken for thinking that a Hawkwind live album represents a watered-down experience which would leave all lacking; wanting more. Not so. The effect is, rather, the aforementioned yearning. Would that we were there. Would that we were there.

The main attraction is, of course, the unrelenting propulsive surges of violent energy – proto-metal, proto-punk – and with all the visceral thrills of ploughing headlong through an asteroid field with only a faulty auto-pilot to guide you.

But it's when the band kick back a level that this live collection really shines. “Space Is Deep” might well be a blindingly obvious sentiment, but never has the debilitating hyper-real wonder felt when witnessing the sheer vast infinity of space been better evoked musically. Also, once you hear “Sonic Attack”, you'll never forget it. This is what all poets dream of – ominously intoning their apocalyptic verses whilst a group of stoned cosmonauts conjure an unholy racket behind you. “Think only of yourself”.

Radiohead – I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings

Presumably this collection was released in order to shut-up all of those sad individuals who winged that Radiohead had somehow “lost it” with Kid A and Amnesiac. Ten years down the line it's easy to forget just how jarring and disquieting those two albums must have sounded on initial release. “I Might Be Wrong” was a none-too-subtle reminder that beneath the treated vocals, jazz freakouts and strange electronic sounds remained a collection of beautifully sung and played songs (yes, songs) of heartbreak, confusion and alienation.

Essentially, this collection reveals the raw humanity behind some of the best bits from their two most difficult albums. The backwards loops of “Like Spinning Plates” are replaced by an unaccompanied piano, and suddenly Radiohead at their most oblique becomes Radiohead at their most exposed.

For most everyone, though, the main draw is in “True Love Waits” - a very old unreleased number which, performed here acoustically by Thom Yorke, is, simply put, one of the most heart-rendingly beautiful love songs as ever written or recorded. Not a dry eye in the house, and all that.

Wilco – Kicking Television

In which Wilco put in a virtuoso performance and, crucially, sound as if they're having a great time. The biggest criteria in deciding the overall quality of a live album is, I realise, in the extent to which you're made to wish as though you were there. Well, with “Kicking Television”, such a yearning kicks in very early on.

Opener “Misunderstood” contains the line “You still love rock and roll”. Upon hearing this, the crowd erupts with apparent spontaneity into a loud cheer. Because they still love rock and roll. And here they are – witnessing rock and roll live – in its purest form.

Essentially, I'd love to be part of such an appreciative audience. The concert as recorded so impeccably here feels more like a religious experience. The band are tight, note perfect – and yet do not sound overtly polished. Countlessly they channel some kind of divine energy targeted directly at those hairs on the back of the neck – they're pure electricity – and I so wish I were there.

Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band – Live 1975-1985

One criteria by which you can judge the quality of a live release is in to what extent it can be of interest to a completist.

Completists in their very nature are, of course, going to rush out and buy absolutely everything ever released by their band or artist of choice. This is not, however, to say that they're not going to be disappointed. Not everything will afford them with something new.

This colossal collection, however, certainly will. Not only is it the only place where you'll find certain essential parts of the Springsteen canon (the rousing “Because The Night” and the desperate “Seeds”), it also contains a number of hyper charged covers (“Raise Your Hand” and “War”) and some devastatingly sparse takes on former barnstormers. The opening “Thunder Road” is heart-stopping enough, but I much prefer the acoustic rendition of “No Surrender”. A  fist-pumping celebration of friendship on “Born In The USA”, stripped-down as it is here it's a lot more powerful, a lot more affecting. Springsteen sounds genuinely wistful – as if he knows that the friendship in question is ultimately doomed.

For everyone else, though, this triple-set acts as the perfect means of witnessing the unremitting live power of The E-Street Band in their heyday. It's the same length as the marathon performances they used to put in and is blessed with exactly the same degree of intimacy that Springsteen brings to even the most massive of audiences. His long monologues between songs are painfully honest and have the potential to make every rapt member of a 10,000 strong crowd feel as though they're being addressed personally. That this feeling is replicated perfectly with the distance not just of space, but also of time, speaks volumes of his potency as a live performer. Here he's at his best. His albums subsequently sound weak by comparison.

Essentially, when compared to R.E.M's dual live-albums, this contains the best of both worlds. Like “R.E.M Live” it contains such songs that even the most casual of fans can love. And yet, it scores the same curio-appeal points and wears its heart on equally as exposed a point as does their “39 Songs”. This, then, is how to do it. Guess only Springsteen's capable, though.

Grateful Dead – Live/Dead

When, at an early age, you begin to take an interest in psychedelic music, inevitably you'll see, hear and read much concerning Grateful Dead. Then you'll hear “Truckin'” or “Workingman's Dead” and you'll think – well. It's a little bit country, isn't it? You'll be disappointed.

Then, however, you'll start to hear things about their live show. About Dead Heads who'd follow them across their country – now that's dedication. How ace would a band have to have been live in order to induce such devotion? Well. So ace that every night would have to be different. So ace that you could see them a hundred times and, moments before they take to the stage, still find that you've no real idea as to what exactly to expect.

So you get yourself a copy of Live/Dead, and it's nothing short of a revelation. This is exactly how you wanted Grateful Dead to sound. Hell, this is exactly how you wanted music itself to sound.

For me, this is the ultimate live-album for two reasons. First of all, I'm yet to come across a piece of music more transcendent that the twenty-three spellbound languid minutes of Dark Star. No other band were able to create a sound so amorphous, so mercurial. Even after what feels like hundreds of listens, I still find myself enthralled, seduced and mesmerised by this seemingly effortless ethereal wash.

Second of all, this – like any Grateful Dead live-album – is merely the official tip of a seemingly infinite iceberg of bootlegs. Even to scrape the surface of this murky yet iridescent world is to stumble upon a passionate community which truly values the pure and redemptive qualities of music.

And it all starts here.

A Spotify Playlist of some of the above. Regrettably, the My Morning Jacket is unavailable. So too is the Spiritualized. In the case of the latter, though, I was able to substitute with something from the Royal Albert Hall album.