The Best 44 4th Albums of All Time #23

Trompe Le Monde – Pixies  (1991, 4AD Records)

“I come around catching sparks off you”

Points 63

Highest Rank 6^th

Head On – Pixies (1991, 4AD Records)

If this series was a superbly packaged double CD album, we would just about now be at the end of the first CD because we have reached the halfway point of the countdown.  Things get even more interesting from here on in. 

Anyway, three things about ‘Trompe Le Monde’ that I need to talk about very briefly.  Firstly, I regularly see copies of Pixies albums in charity shops.  In fact, I have found copies of the first three Pixies albums, plus a Best Of and the BBC sessions album in charity shops but I have never once seen a copy of ‘Trompe Le Monde’ in a charity shop.  Which if you use a twisted sort of logic, means that it has to be their best album (Probably).

Talking of the BBC Session Album, that contains a beefed up version of this track which ‘Debaser’ aside is my favourite Pixies moment of all time.  You can compare the two of them below.

Subbacultcha – Pixies (1991, 4AD Records)

Subbacultcha (BBC Session) – Pixies (1998, 4AD Records, Taken from ‘Pixies at the BBC’)

Second thing, the cover version of the Jesus and Mary Chain’s ‘Head On’ is just as awesome and just as great as the original and if you have never heard it before I suggest that you find a spare two minutes to drown in its brilliance. Whilst you are there you can check out ‘Planet of Sound’ as well, which was probably the last truly great Pixies single.

Planet of Sound – Pixies (1991, 4AD Records)

Thirdly, one of the Musical Jury has their hand up because ‘Trompe Le Monde’ is another one of those albums that has raised questions.

“I love ‘Trompe Le Monde’ but isn’t it the fifth Pixies album? – It can have seven points regardless”

Well, lets consult the musical oracle that is Wikipedia, which to be fair I should have consulted for each of these albums.  I’m also going to rename this series “A Pedant’s Guide To Some Albums Which Maybe the 3^rd, 4^th or 5^th Release By That Band”.

I have a feeling that the Jury Member might have been talking about ‘Come on Pilgrim’ which isn’t a studio album (and the Elvis Costello Clause, clearly states that on page 212 , paragraph 9 subsection 4 that non studio albums don’t count) either that or they know something which Wikipedia and I don’t.

“Trompe le Monde is the fourth studio album by the American alternative rock band Pixies, released on September 23, 1991 on 4AD in the United Kingdom”. 

So that is that sorted then, Wikipedia doesn’t lie.  It also raises a fourth point, that being that ‘Trompe Le Monde’ was released on the same day as ‘Nevermind’.  There is irony somewhere in that statement.

Motorway to Roswell -Pixies (1991, 4AD Records)

Here is tomorrow’s lyrical clue where yet more controversy will surface.

 I know I’ve just gotta get out of this place

The Best 44 4th Albums of All Time #24

100^th Window – Massive Attack (2003, Virgin Records)

“Reinforced glass”

Points 62

Highest Rank 8^th (twice)

Future Proof – Massive Attack (2003, Virgin Records)

‘100^th Window’ the fourth album from the Bristol trip hop innovators Massive Attack divided opinion.   There are those who think it is an unheralded masterpiece, who thought that Massive Attack were continuing to break the mould musically and were pretty much musical miracle makers.  The other side of the coin though it was an unmitigated disaster.  They thought it was an uneasy box of head scratching puzzles and full of difficult tracks.

Of course there is a third school of thought who kind of just shrug and stick on ‘Blue Lines’ instead, but we’ll ignore that lot for the time being and instead we will start with the unheralded masterpiece side of things and I’ll pass over the driving gloves to the Bristol based contingent of the Musical Jury who are rather predictably, positively glowing about ‘100^th Window’.

“20 years ago?! Sinead O’Connor’s presence across her three contributions was immense, even more keenly felt coming back to it again now.  An incredible album, then and now, a natural progression rooted in but unlike anything Massive Attack had done before.”

Here is one of the O’Connor sung tracks, one that rather bleakly sees Sinead singing about violence against children, something which apparently she knew a lot about.  I say singing, she is raging, proper brimstone and fire rage and it is astonishingly good because of it.  To be honest, Sinead is the best thing on the record.

A Prayer For England – Massive Attack (2003, Virgin Records)

Here is another one, all about domestic violence this time one that comes with this rumbling bass that hints at anger and problems in the future.  I think its deliberate. 

Special Cases – Massive Attack (2003, Virgin Records)

On the other side of the divide is the view of one of the other members of the jury, who despite positively hating ‘100^th Window’ still managed to score it (albeit quite low). 

“I’m still not convinced by ‘100^th Window’.  Massive Attack sound like a totally different band, the scratches and the general funkiness of what come before it have gone and what we have left are soft ambient bleeps, some whispering guitars and a drum machine that sounds like it has been set on the wrong speed”

They have a point, there is no Shara Nelson, no Tricky, not even a Mushroom here.  ‘100^th Window’ is pretty much the work of Robert Del Naia on his own, and if I remember things correctly, he was in the middle of a drug induced breakdown at the time (apologies if I have that wrong).

You do get a couple of songs featuring Horace Andy though – but even they sound unrecognisable to what you expect them to sound like.

Everywhen – Massive Attack (2003, Virgin Records)

Which kind of leaves us at an en passe.  Its is a Massive Attack album and that makes it special by just existing.  It again adds weight to the fourth album argument, it shows a band experimenting and changing stance from all of what has come before – potentially annoying their fans in the process.

Which is admirable, but for once where Massive Attack are concerned, it doesn’t quite totally work.  The question is does raise though is: – Just how good would a full length collaboration record between Del Naia and Sinead O’Connor have been? 

Here is tomorrow’s deceptively clever lyrical clue.

“As soon as I get my head around you”

50 Twelve Inches – #16 The Orb

Toxygene – The Orb (1997, Island Records, Taken from ‘Orblivion’)

My now eleven year old daughter has been at a sleepover at her friends house.  She has according to her friends parents been taking part in a midnight feast consisting of marshmallows, liquorice, and fizzy cola bottles.  The feast started at around ten past twelve and finished with a couple of yelps around two am. 

Because of this, the latest episode of blogging equivalent of old seventies game show staple ‘The Golden Shot’ was a subdued affair.  My finger nearly made it all the way to the end of the vinyl cupboard before a mumbled “STOP” caused it to hover over a twelve inch by The Orb which sits three or four records from the end of cupboard.  If we got to the end of the cupboard you would have been listening to this rather wonderful piece of mid nineties drum and bass.

Nu Birth of Cool (Rogue Unit Mix) – Omni Trio (1996, Moving Shadow Records, Taken from ‘The Haunted Science’)

As it happens, I was going to make a small change to this series, nothing drastic, but you see what usually happens after the STOP command is uttered is that I pull the record out, show it to my daughter, tell her what I think of it and ask Alexa to play the tracks that are on it (if she can find them).    

Normally this results in my daughter saying “That’s rubbish” (her reaction to ‘Hymn from a Village’ by James) or “It’s Too Noisy” (‘Cannonball’) and I thought that I would start to include my daughter’s ‘No More than Five Words Review’ at the top of the piece, but today she has a lack of sleep and too many fizzy cola bottles induced headache and she just wants to sit in bed and read a book.  So we will probably never know what my daughter thinks of ‘Toxygene’ by The Orb but we will start the No More Than Five Words Reviews next week.

I will of course, when she has detoxed, give her a stern lecture about her responsibilities to this blog.  These young people have no commitment and I am shocked that she has put having what sounds like riotous fun in front of listening to me drone on about The Orb and telling her that I think a particular track is “Amazing”.

There will of course be a consequence for her slapdash and carefree attitude.  As I type she has fallen asleep and I have asked Alexa to wake her up in one hour and to play the Kris Needs Remix of ‘Toxygene’ as part of that alarm call.  I have also changed the wake word so that only I know it.  Tough I know, but she has to learn.

Toxygene  (Kris Needs Up For a Fortnight Mix)– The Orb  (1997, Island Records)

This twelve inch is another promo.  It has a black sleeve with some orange writing on it, telling you what is on each side.  This is because the record is stamped with a big A on one side and a big B on the other.

The Kris Needs Mix is on the A Side and it’s a throbbing beast of a track, a seething blend of beats, samples and a twisting acid loop that crashes around all over the shop like a buffalo with a raging hangover.   It was made to slay dancefloors and it totally does that.

The B Side is the much less played but in no way less good Way Out West Begbie Mix  – which I can only find via You tube link.

Toxygene (Way Out Begbie Mix) – The Orb (1997, Island Records)

Nearly Perfect Albums #83

The Contino Sessions – Death in Vegas (1999, Deconstruction Records)

The origin of the phrase “Never Meet Your Heroes” is widely contested.  Literary critics will tell you with a furrowed brow and wry look that the phrase is uttered by the titular character, in the saucy nineteen century novel Madame Bovary, just after she had really boring rumpy pumpy with an aristocrat (Folks, I’m a simple chap, I haven’t read Madame Bovary, I know it’s supposed  to be rude and French and that’s about it – the stuff about the aristocrat, I’ve made up for comedic effect, humour me please).

Philosophers will tell you that it wasn’t Madame Bovary (and by extension, her creator Gustave Flaubert – he of the parrot fame) because her words have been lost in translation and context – but was indeed another French chap, Marcel Proust who said that “you should never work with or meet those that you admire” before raising an eyebrow and downing a substantial glass of brandy (Again, I have neve studied Proust and I have no idea if he was partial to a glass of brandy or not – I apologise to all Proust fans if I have tarnished his memory by suggesting he liked a drink). 

A chap I know called Terry will scoff at all of that and tell you that he was the first person to utter those words.  He said it after meeting his hero George Best in a (and here I am quietly confident that I am correct) pub near Spitalfields Market in the late eighties and after an hour in his company, declared to anyone who was listening that “George Best, is a boring drunken idiot, and I wish I’d never met him” .

I’ve never met any of my heroes, apart from Tony Cascerino and he spelt my name wrong on a piece of paper I gave him to sign, so there might be some truth in what Flaubert/Proust/Terry said.

Regardless of all that, nobody told this to Richard Fearless, the man who pretty much is Death in Vegas, because in the late nineties, he invited all of his heroes to sing and play on his new album.  Luckily for him and us they agreed and even luckier, they turned out to not be boring drunken idiots and Fearless was able to give us the incredible album that is ‘The Contino Sessions’

Broken Little Sister (featuring Jim Reid) – Death in Vegas (1999 Deconstruction Records)

‘The Contino Sessions’ is pretty close to being perfect.  It is a record that sounds in equal parts like the best bits of Primal Scream, the Mary Chain, the Stooges, the Velvet Underground, Kraftwerk and Daft Punk.  A fizzing energy ball of electronica, garage rock, krautrock and lofi brilliance. 

It was always going to be brilliant given the people involved (although if you listened to the band’s first record ‘Dead Elvis’ you would never ever expected them to come back with this) even if the best two tracks on it features none of Fearless’ heroes.

Dirge – Death in Vegas (1999, Deconstruction Records)

Neptune City – Death in Vegas (1999 Deconstruction Records)

But what of the heroes.  Well, the pick of the bunch is ‘Aisha’ in which Iggy Pop delivers what could arguably be his finest vocal moment in 30 years as drumming casually lifted from an AC/DC record pounds away behind his drugged up serial killer tale and his gurgling strangled scream near the end, is just a thing to behold.

Aisha (featuring Iggy Pop) – Death in Vegas (1999, Deconstruction Records)

You get Bobby G (ban temporarily lifted) snarling out lyrics about “insects hatching in his mind” in the pumped up hip hop that is ‘Soul Auctioneer’ and you get Jim Reid, being Jim Reid on ‘Broken Little Sister’.

Soul Auctioneer (Featuring Bobby Gillespie) – Death In Vegas (1999, Deconstruction Records)

The one criticism that you can level at ‘The Contino Sessions’ is that it is a bit moody (and it is as moody as teenager who has had their phone taken off them for the evening and is being forced to watch Michael MacIntye on the telly instead) but you can work around that – because its bloody marvellous.

The Best 44 4th Albums of All Time #25

Eat to the Beat – Blondie (1979, Chrysalis Records)

“Rolls on no ordinary wheel”

Points 61

Highest Rank 10^th (twice)

The Hardest Part – Blondie (1979, Chrysalis Records)

A special treat for us today – Here to start us off today is one of the few female members of the Musical Jury, MJM #17 to you and I. 

“Every Blondie fan will tell you that ‘Parallel Lines’ is Blondie’s masterpiece, but if you ask me, I’ll tell you that its ‘Eat to the Beat’.  I can understand why ‘Parallel Lines’ get so much attention, just look at the tracklisting for a start, but I’ll tell something seeing as you sort of asked, ‘Eat to the Beat’ has way more to offer, its cooler, it’s more decadent and when I was 14 (that was in 1997, before you start getting cheeky) I thought it was pretty much the greatest record on the planet.”

In contrast here is our old friend MJM#19.

“Blondie, pah.  I went off them when I saw Damon Albarn dressed up as Debbie Harry on the cover of ‘Parallel Lines’ it felt wrong in some way to ever listened to them again.”

Here is that photo should anyone want to take a look – you will need to remove your eyes and burn them afterwards though. 

Personally I didn’t listen to ‘Eat to the Beat’ until about ten years ago, when I found a copy on CD in a second hand shop in Tiverton.  Back then I used to take my daughter out in the car on a Sunday afternoon.  Sometimes we would go for a walk but mostly she would fall asleep and I would sit in a car park and listen to music for an hour, using munching on a home made sandwich.  It was in a car park behind a branch of Wickes in Exeter that I first listened to ‘Eat to the Beat’.  The volume was hushed as my little one slept.  I still couldn’t help tapping the stereo wheel when ‘Atomic’ came on.  I tapped away gently, biting my lip so that I didn’t yell along.

Atomic – Blondie (1979, Chrysalis Records)

I mean its great isn’t, the disco beat that pings all over the place, the kind of Krautrock, kind of not synths, the way in which Debbie Harry drops her voice the first time she says “Atomic”, the way as I have said before its sound like she is telling you and you alone that “your hair is beautiful”.  One of the best songs ever recorded, simple as that.

I might have also tapped the steering wheel when ‘Die Young Stay Pretty’ came on, even if it treads uncomfortably close to being a reggae song.

Die Young Stay Pretty – Blondie (1979, Chrysalis Records)

MJM#17 is of course right and the decadence nature of the album.  Its about life in New York in the late seventies.  Its about leaving clubs at 6am when the streets are weirdly silent because people should be sleeping.  It’s about being downtown at night and being alone in an intoxicating city. 

I’ll leave things appropriately with ‘Sound A Sleep’ a track I’d love to say was playing in the car when my daughter fell asleep all those years ago – it wasn’t but it’s a beautiful little lullaby.

Sound-A-Sleep – Blondie (1979, Chrysalis Records)

Here is Monday’s lyrical clue

“Borderline case”

Reinforced glass

The Best 44 4th Albums of All Time #26

Let It Come Down – Spiritualized (2001, Arista Records)

“There ain’t nothing you can gain that prepares you enough”

Points 60

Highest Rank 6th

Stop Your Crying – Spiritualized (2001, Arista Records)

For most of the late part of the last century, Jason Pierce would have asked himself the same question over and over again.  “What now….?”.  He had in 1997 released the truly extraordinary ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, We are Floating in Space’, where he had fused gospel, jazz, garage rock and heart breaking songs about having, well a broken heart, and pretty won over the nation (or the indie music loving nation at least) in the process.

In 2001, Spiritualized revealed what they would do next in the form of their fourth album ‘Let It Come Down’ and was another truly extraordinary album, not quite so truly extraordinary as albums one and three but more so that album two.  In terms of emotional fragility – it was up there with album three in the heartwrenching stakes (See ‘Stop Your Crying’ if you need proof).  It was a sixty minute smorgasbord of sounds that drew influence from soul, country music, 50s beebop album, the Beachboys and the Velvet Underground to name just some of them.  It was a more reflective record, much more reliant of Pierces, excellent songwriting skills.  If ‘Ladies and Gentlemen…’ was supposed to Pierce’s break up record (he denies this), then ‘Let It Come Down’ is supposed to be his rehab record.

(what follows now is a short piece of analysis, where I, SWC, will conclude, unsurprisingly, that Jason Pierce took a shit load of drugs when making this record and it isn’t anywhere near a rehab record)

At least we are supposed to think that this is a rehab record, I mean the songs titles suggest it – there are songs called things like ‘Straight and Narrow’ and ‘The Twelve Steps’ for starters but when you explore those songs (the latter in particular) you will quickly realise that this is an album where Pierce is talking about turning to drugs because he finds them more reliable.

The Twelve Steps – Spiritualized (2001, Arista Records)

The Straight and Narrow – Spiritualized (2001, Arista Records)

It is also full of knowing drugs references, like in ‘Do It All Over Again’, Pierce makes an almost joke about burning holes in his clothes in a drug addled daze.  It’s a brilliant track but its not about being on the road to redemption, its stuck in the cul de sac where the pushers hang out and its having trouble reversing.

(see told you)

Do It All Over Again – Spiritualized (2001, Arista Records)

Pushing (arf!) all that to one side, ‘Let It Come Down’ is a great record, it features around 100 different musicians across its sixty minutes and culminates with two great songs, firstly the 10 minute gospel influence epic ‘Won’t Get to Heaven (The State I’m In)’ which again is either highlighting the fact Pierce is either a bit messed up or he is planning to spend the rest of his days in the famously atheist state of North Dakota. Regardless it joins the list of brilliant long Spiritualized tracks.

Won’t Get To Heaven (The State I’m In) – Spiritualized (2001, Arista Records)

The last track is a sort of reprise of the old Spacemen 3 track ‘Lord Can You Hear Me’ and it sounds wonderful.

Lord Can You Hear Me – Spiritualized (2001, Arista Records)

For the second day running, I’m going to hand over to MJM#20 to give you a slightly less gushing opinion.

“’Let It Come Down’ is a great record, tarnished only by the fact that it isn’t its predecessor.  It is a raw and colossal record and when Spiritiualized were good there wasn’t a band on earth who could touch them, with the possible exception of Radiohead – whose 4^th album was better.”

Matter of opinion that – we’ll find out later if Radiohead’s fourth record even made the Top 44.

Here is tomorrow’s lyrical clue

“Twenty-five tons of hardened steel”

The Best 44 4th Albums of All Time #27

Richard D James – Aphex Twin (1996, Warp Records)

“My[click, whirl] and [click, click]”

Points 59

Highest Rank 2^nd

To Cure A Weakling Child – Aphex Twin (1996, Warp Records)

Let’s deal with the album cover whilst everyone gets comfy.  The sleeve art of ‘Richard D James’ is kind of terrifying.  The cover is a picture of Richard’s grinning face, but it’s the not the face of a mild mannered DJ from deepest Cornwall, it’s the face of psychopath.  The smile is sinister, his eyes look evil and the stark white backdrop makes him look like a pantomime villain from some futuristic thriller where a deranged computer genius takes over the world by infecting laptops with baffling crypto jargon.

Its hard to push that aside when you get round to considering the music on offer on ‘Richard D James’ because it’s not just the alarming album sleeve – but you also have to consider the fact that this is the album where the Aphex Twin dives headfirst into pissing around with drills and other household tools in the middle of certain tracks.  That and the countless audio surprises that greet you as you listen.

It starts beautifully though with ‘4’ and those icy fears of spooky horror techno dissolve as essentially an orchestra fire up backed by a synth which darts in and out of the track, jostling for primacy with the stuttering breakbeats which follow it around like a hungry child. ‘4’ is remarkable and if I had to list my favourite Aphex Twin moments for some form of imaginary compilation album, it would open side two.

4 – Aphex Twin (1996, Warp Records)

The rest of the album is far more playful.  Tracks like ‘Cornish Acid’ and ‘Peek 824545201’ sound altogether different, the latter is a mishmash of computer noises and alien squelches laid over an organ sound which may or may not be sampled from a black and white information film about rural churches.  Regardless, the spookiness and otherworldliness that we love Aphex for is back by the time track three ends.

Peek 824545201 – Aphex Twin (1996, Warp Records)

That is followed by ‘Fingerbib’ which if you are keeping count would also be on that imaginary compilation album, somewhere near the end of side one – it also happens to be one of the finest melodies that the Aphex Twin has ever recorded.  A ballad of sorts, if only because it doesn’t have madcap breakbeats running amok in it.

Fingerbib – Aphex Twin (1996, Warp Records)

Eventually you will get to ‘To Cure a Weakling Child’ the track in which Richard James decides that it about time we heard him sing.  Well sort of.  His voice is massively manipulated to make him sound like a child and most of it is drowned out by clicks, whirrs, synths and some stunning breakbeat action. Its kind of like the noises the ten year old me would have made when presented with a new Lego set.

I am of course an Aphex fan boy.  I sulked last month for three days because I couldn’t go to Bristol to see him at the Forwards Festival so I am bound to say that this a work of genius, I mean it genuinely is, but I’ll leave the last word to MJM #20 who gave Aphex his highest point tally (probably because I didn’t vote – it would have got 100 points if I did).

“The ‘Richard D James’ album, is incredible, one of the most complete electronic albums ever recorded.  Its full of noises that shouldn’t go well together but do because the Aphex Twin has demanded that they should.  The way the swanny whistle is used electronically on the last track ‘Logan Rock Witch’ as a spectral organ swirls around it, the way the classical sounding piano mingles with brain achingly fast drum n bass on ‘Girl/Boy Song’, the way his own voice is distorted on ‘To Cure a Weakling Child’ all of it shouldn’t work but when heard here it is simply stunning.”

Girl/Boy Song – Aphex Twin (1996, Warp Records)

See told you.  Right here is tomorrow more conventional lyric clue and for once its an easy one…

“Nothing hurts you like the pain of someone you love,”

The best 44 4th Albums of All Time #28

From the Double Gone Chapel – Two Lone Swordsmen (2004, Warp Records)

Over the junkyard

Points 58

Highest Rank 4^th

Punches and Knives – Two Lone Swordsmen (2004, Warp Records)

A guest posting from Swiss Adam from the Bagging Area Blog.

Between 1996 and 2001 Two Lone Swordsmen (Andrew Weatherall and Keith Tenniswood) made electronic music that began broad, taking in a variety of style across three albums and several Eps and 12” singles, eventually funnelling their hours in the studio and DJing into something very focussed and purist. 2000’s ‘Tiny Reminders’ took their sound as far into electronic music as it could go, six sides of vinyl that refine and push ambient- industrial, bass heavy electro and futuristic abstract IDM into its end form.

Then they took a bit of a break and being an ever moving on, creatively restless soul they decided to expand TLS into something else- a band. Adding live drums (from Rich Thair and Nick Burton) and guitars (from Lung) they made a very murky but endlessly fascinating record- ‘From The Double Gone Chapel’, an album which fused their electronic styles with garage- punk and post punk. For added WTF Weatherall sang on some of the songs.

The album is partly named after a road novel by Jim Dodge, ‘Not Fade Away’, a book full of characters in stolen cars, a ’59 Cadillac that was supposed to be being delivered to the Big Bopper.  Andrew started wearing western shirts and a quiff. They covered ‘Sex Beat’ by LA country blues punks The Gun Club, an inspired choice of cover that showed exactly where Weatherall was at.

Sex Beat – Two Lone Swordsmen (2004, Warp Records)

On ‘Faux’ over a grimy electronic beat and snarly FX Weatherall sings of The Count Five, sinful rhythms and a girl in a crossbone sweater who ‘don’t do faux’. ‘Kamada’s Response’ the live drums bang away, bass thumps and Weatherall sounds like Tom Waits. ‘The Lurch’ sounds like The Fall spliced with Neu! Album closer ‘Driving With My Gears In Reverse (Only Makes You Move Further Away)’ the band play a kind of slowed down garage krautrock, a feedback guitar line winding its way through the song.

The Lurch – Two Lone Swordsmen (2004, Warp Records)  (and it genuinely does sound like The Fall – SWC)

Kamadas Response – Two Lone Swordsmen (2004, Warp Records)

Never one to meet anyone’s expectations, Weatherall confounded his own fans with From The Double Gone Chapel. The album is a breath of fresh air- although the song’s dense, garage rock basement sounds maybe that should be a breath of stale air (nice wordplay – SWC). It moved him into a new area, fans from the 90s who’d drifted during ‘Tiny Reminders’ coming back and fans of the ‘Tiny Reminders’ sounds scratching their heads. If Andrew Weatherall is one of the true mavericks and innovators of British music since 1990 (and he is), then ‘From the Double Gone Chapel’ is a key work, a side step from his other albums – ‘Screamadelica’, ‘Morning White Dove’, the Sabres Of Paradise records, his solo work in the 2010s- but one that has much going on beneath its grimy front cover and sounds.

Driving With My Gears in Reverse (Only Makes You Move Further Away) – Two Lone Swordsmen (2004 Warp Records)

SWC adds – Marvellous stuff Adam, ‘The Double Gone Chapel’ is a great record, full of beats and twisty electronica that is spliced with post punk sounds.  Its well worth a listen and Adam is absolutely right – Weatherall really is one of the true mavericks and innovators of the British Music Scene from any era.

Here is tomorrows devilishly tricky lyrical clue

“My [high pitched screech] My [clicks backward vocal]”

The best 44 4th Albums of All Time #29

Nobody Wants to Be Here and Nobody Wants to Leave  – The Twilight Sad (2014, Fat Cat Records)

“There’s no one in the right”

Points 57

Highest Rank 3^rd

Leave the House – The Twilight Sad (2014, FatCat Records)

I’m going to start with MJM#4 who is slightly cross this morning.  This is not because I was unable to met him for an impromptu seven pints in the Berlin Hackesher Market last week but because he had ranked the fourth Twilight Sad album lower than he wanted to.   

“I’m annoyed that I haven’t placed this higher, but I need to be truthful to the task in hand.  I really want to give this as many points as The Fall or Billy Bragg (obviously more of them later, much later in Mr Bragg’s case) as I think the Twilight Sad will need them to make the cut,  It is every bit as good as those albums but in a different way, and maybe the reason I can’t go as high is that it is much younger than anything else (other than ‘DAMN’) on the list to this point, and the voting kind of reflects an rewards longevity”.

Another member of the jury was also singing the praises of this record. 

“Nobody Wants to be Here….  was easily the best album of 2014”

Was it really?  ‘1989’ by Taylor Swift and ‘Run the Jewels 2’ were both released in 2014 and I’d argue both of them were better than ‘Nobody Wants to be Here…”, that’s not to say that its not a fine album, because it absolutely is.  It’s just that ‘Nobody Wants to Be Here….’ is quite a miserable record and that in my opinion stops it being a classic.

It Was Never the Same – The Twilight Sad (2014, FatCat Records)

Misery isn’t necessarily a bad thing, musically at least and there is a school of thought that suggests that bands are at their most creative when they are at their most miserable, and right now no band does miserable quite as well as the Twilight Sad.  The wonderful irony is that they sound genuinely joyous in all that gloom.

The lead single for the album was “Last January” which has this dark, almost industrial edge to it, the percussion is all mechanical and the guitars sound heavy and flooded with reverb, and it’s rather tremendous

Last January – The Twilight Sad (2014, FatCat Records)

Heavily flooded reverb crops up a lot in this record, clearly no bad thing at all, one of the tracks ‘There’s a Girl in the Corner’, features a veritable wall of guitars that sounds a lot more like the Jesus and Mary Chain that anyone might have expected.

There’s A Girl in the Corner – The Twilight Sad (2014, FatCat Records)

After that you get ‘In Nowheres’, which might just be my favourite track on the whole album, largely because the guitars aren’t quite as reverb heavy and hints (well it is a disguised hint) at a more positive future from the band.

In Nowheres – The Twilight Sad (2014, FatCat Records)

The album ends with its most bleak moment, ‘Sometimes I Wish I Could Fall Asleep’, which is a ballad where the vocals stand out more than anywhere else on the album

Sometimes I Wish I Could Fall Asleep – The Twilight Sad (2014, FatCat Records)

Tomorrow’s post will be the second guest posting in this series as we welcome back the utterly marvellous Swiss Adam from the equally marvellous Bagging Area Blog.  Here is a lyrical clue as to what he will be writing about.

“The sound of new machines.”

50 Twelve Inches – #15 The Breeders

Cannonball – The Breeders (1993, 4AD Records, Taken from ‘The Last Splash’)

When I launched this blog I joined a bunch of music related groups on Facebook, some were about a particular band, some were about a genre of a band, others were just a space for people to bang on about whatever music they were listening to that week.  The idea was that I would every now and again post a link to the blog to the 3000 members of that group and build up a nice readership through it. 

What I didn’t realise was that most of the groups were full of bigoted music snobs who would argue like two rhinos debating who had the biggest horn, over who was the ‘most indie’ or who had heard of the unsigned Crawley act ‘spunkbracket’ first and as such I decided that I didn’t actually want narrow minded toss bags like that reading this blog. 

I told myself that I should leave the group, but every now and again, if you ignored the comments from the idiots you would actually get some decent recommendations of new bands.  For instance, a person was talking at length about a band called Big Special that he saw live in Sheffield a few weeks ago. 

This Here Ain’t Water – Big Special (2023, SO Records)

“Just listen to their music please, they deserve to be HUUUGE!” he hollered from his lounge to the groups 3000 members.   Within minutes, he had 12 responses.

“I saw them in a toilet in Bradford TWO YEARS AGO, they’ve sold out now by playing a gig in Sheffield” came a quick response from Joe Sawthem First.

“Bradford, huh, they were blown out by then.  It was the gig at the Pigfanciers Arms in Keighley where this band really took off.” Came Indie Pete’s response.

I may have changed these responses, but you get the idea.  Regardless of that, Big Special are if you ask me, a bit erm, special, and you should probably check them out, even if you’ve already heard them, play their records some more, because music needs bands like this.

Anyway, how does this link into The Breeders, I hear at least one of you yell.  Well, a few weeks ago, my patience with that group finally snapped.  It snapped when someone – Let’s say it was Indie Pete for the sake of me not inventing another person – posted their utter disgust at the fact that The Breeders had been announced as one of the support acts on Olivia Rodrigo’s 2024 world tour (they are supporting on two shows, one in Los Angeles and one in New York so it’s hardly a tour).

For those of you who have never heard Olivia Rodrigo, this is what she sounds like

Vampire – Olivia Rodrigo (2023, Geffen Records, Taken from ‘GUTS’)

Which isn’t actually that bad really.

Although I admit that I did raise an eyebrow, when I first read it and then when I read further that Indie Pete was apoplectic with rage at the idea (you could tell how angry he was because the swearing was in capitals “Sell Out BASTARDS I’m burning all my early Breeders demo tapes right now, and chucking my promo copy of ‘Cannonball’ in the FUCKING BIN”) I thought it was a marvellous idea.  

So I commented.

I shouldn’t have done I know.  I should have rammed my fingers in the door to stop me ever typing again.  I know. But this is what I said.

“This is great news.  I didn’t even know that the Breeders were still going so surely the fact that they are together again and playing gigs, might mean some new music, and surely that is a good thing.  I wish I could go and see them at the Los Angeles gig.”

Apparently, this view made me someone who was a “Plastic Indie Fan”, (probably true) and someone who “Probably likes the Stereophonics” (harsh, although I do have a soft spot for ‘Local Boy in the Photograph’), oh go one then.  It’s a great track, accept it.

Local Boy in the Photograph – Stereophonics (1997, V2 Records, Taken from ‘Word Gets Around’)

It also made me a “Radio 1 indie show listener who owns one Nirvana record” “(two actually and one of those is on download and that Radio 1 show plays some really good music) and “Someone who should fuck off back to their Taylor Swift records”. 

Now I’ll gladly admit that I much prefer Taylor Swift to Olivia Rodrigo, but I accept that telling Indie Pete and his mates that I preferred Taylor Swift to the Breeders, could have been seen as provocation.  Even if it is true.

I found myself barred from the group the next day.  Shame.

We are Never Ever Getting Back Together – Taylor Swift (2012, Big Machine Records, Taken from ‘Red’)