Listening To...

  • King Crimson - Larks' Tongues In Aspic. Though I love the 80s K.C., and I love 1974's "Red", I've always been wary of their earlier stuff. I bought a K.C. compilation in the 80s and it had a couple of their early tunes which grated on me: too proggy in that misty medieval minstrel style. And the title of this album certainly suggested more of that. Plus, the list of band members, at the time, included a violinist! Zounds! So I've avoided this for 25 years. But I recently read some reviews that convinced me to spend a minute sampling it in iTunes. And I'm glad of it. There's none of that RenFaire vibe here. This is much more like "Red" - heavy as hell, bombastic and noisy at times, complicated and generally just brilliant. It's from 1973 and has the same lineup as "Red", too - less a percussionist who departed after this record. But, in my opinion, if you've got Bill Bruford, you don't really need anyone else playing drums.

  • Jill Scott - Who Is Jill Scott? Since there's no more Erykah Badu out there for me to buy, I'm looking at people who get grouped together with her under the "neo soul" banner. And, indeed, there's a lot of similarity between Scott an Badu. They do the same sultry R&B: patiently funky and gently jazzy, densely detailed, precisely produced. Compared to Badu, Scott has a smoother voice and her lyrics are more obviously poetic and more personal. And they're always romantic or sexy; no politics here. I like the sound, but I can only take so many love songs in a day - even if some are kindof playfully dirty. I'll check out more from her, eventually.

  • ALA.NI - You & I - Spring. Someone on my Facebook feed linked to a video of her so I investigated. If not for the lack of terrible sound quality and modern multi-track production (ex. she does multi-part harmony with herself), you'd swear these were some from the 1920s or 30s. Gently swinging old-school poppy jazz, very nicely executed.

    She only has this one single out so far, but I expect there will be more.

  • Norah Jones - The Fall. For this, she dropped the soft jazzy pop and picked up some alternative adult soft rock. Her voice is as warm and fuzzy as ever, but the music - though it be gentle as a cloud - just isn't as snuggley as the stuff on "Come Away With Me".

  • Raphael Saadiq - Stone Rollin'. Groovy 60's-style R&B, with some modern flavor. There's a lot of stuff with that description out there these days. But, like Alabama Shakes, he adds enough new ingredients to the old recipes to keep it from tasting exactly like your gramma's R&B.

  • Constant Velocity - 7 songs about eric clapton. This is pretty great. Lots of interesting stuff going on in these songs: structurally, melodically, sonically. The songs are full of twists and turns - and following along is half the fun - but they still flow nicely. Which is not an easy feat to pull off. And though comparing bands to other bands is my favorite thing to do, I can't come up with a solid comparison here. I keep thinking about The Decemberists because there's a theatrical/narrative feel to many of the songs, the way they change-up every few bars, and the A+ vocabulary of the lyrics. But there's not much similarity musically, and I find The Decemberists to be pretentious and boring. This is neither. This is more scrappy and spiky and rocks harder and is simply a lot more fun. Plus, it's commenter Jewish Steel's band!

    Check em out at Bandcamp.

You?

16 thoughts on “Listening To...”

      1. cleek Post author

        i also get a bit of an Oxford Collapse vibe in the first couple of tunes. which is a good thing, but i assume it’s just a coincidence because nobody knows the Oxford Collapse.

            1. Jewish Steel

              On my album? I’m most of the guitars.

              A fella named Aaron Starkey plays on a couple of tunes (12 bar and Hurtwood Edge) and Jerry Erickson (who can be seen at the end of Any Which Way But Loose playing guitar in his band Timothy P And Rural Route Three. Truly!) plays guitar on A Childhood Ambition and pedal steel on It’s Not Very Likely.

                1. Jewish Steel

                  CV was a real gigging band from c 96/97 to 2009ish. It’s taken me 5+ years of tracking and mixing to finish this, our swan song.

                  1. Jewish Steel

                    This album was meant to make an artistic/marketing splash. The title was contrived to make you consider it for a moment and in that moment’s hesitation I am initiating a conversation on the nature of classic rock and how a bunch of 60’s stuff is passed down to us culturally etc etc. These are not just things I find interesting but ways I intended to engage the music press and direct its spotlight on the band. We were always well regarded critically and so I intended to leverage that interest so we could take the next steps.

                    But, alas, this band is gone. C’est la guerre!

  2. dbati

    Steve Gunn currently (and for the past year) has been getting a lot of my attention. Phenomenal guitar.

  4. Woody Peckerwood

    All great stuff…

    Especially enjoyed the King Crimson and was reminded of their heavy use of the Mellotron M-400 and the Mk II string sound. Recently bought one of these old beasts.

Comments are closed.