- Anita O'Day And The Three Sounds. A one-off recorded one week in '62 with O'Day singing with The Three Sounds (a piano, bass & drums trio). Almost half of it is instrumental, and on those tracks where O'Day does sing, she often leaves huge instrumental stretches. The Three Sounds themselves are very low-key and minimal here, and so when O'Day isn't singing, sometimes it seems very empty. I can't help but imagine O'Day sitting there during those breaks, looking bored, walking around, doing some heroin (or whatever she was into at that time). And, it turns out that this was the last record she'd make for seven years - which was quite a change for someone who'd released ten records in the two years prior. So, I guess she really wasn't feeling it. Still, it's not bad, it's just realllllly laid back, and a bit light on the O'Day.
Two raquos: »» - Anita O'Day - Anita Sings The Most. This one, though, is all about O'Day. All the songs are standards (Old Devil Moon, Stella By Starlight, S'Wonderful, Them There Eyes, etc.) and the band (the Oscar Peterson Quartet) is far more full and engaging than The Three Sounds. You can hear O'Day smiling her way through her lyrics.
I'm not sure when jazz vocalists gave up on emotion, but in the stuff I hear on the local jazz station these days, female jazz singers have switched to a emotionally flat, and crisply enunciated delivery that sounds more like pitch-modulated speaking than what people usually consider singing. O'Day is definitely a singer.
Three and a half raquos: »»»>
- Harlem - Hippies. This record really wants to sound like a 60's garage band. The songs themselves are short and quick and musically sound every bit like something from The Seeds or The Syndicate Of Sound or The Kingsmen (or The Mosquitos!) or any of those other 60's bands who took the Kinks and Beatles as inspiration but came up with something much more lean and rough and raw, and much less interested in traditional musical theory than anything you'd hear from Lennon & McCartney.
The guitars are played loudly with a lot of reverb but without heavy distortion, so there's a lot of clang. The vocals are shouty. There's a bass in there, but it's tough to hear at times. It's aggressively lo-fi. The record's not actually mono, but on most songs most of the sound is piled-up in the center of the mix, with some of the drums spread just slightly out to the sides. And, most noticeably, the whole thing has been EQ'd so that all the bass and high end is gone. So, basically, it sounds like an old 45 being played on a cheap record player with a worn-out needle. In sound-isolating headphones, that's not a terrible effect - it works. In my car, however, it sounds very thin and washed out and shitty.
Still, the songs are fun.
Three raquos: »»» - The Sea And Cake - The Moonlight Butterfly A
fivesix song EP. First song is a somewhat standard current-era S&C tune. But, the chords in the verse sound a lot like a tune I wrote many years ago, about the girl who would, many years later, become the lovely and talented Mrs.. And so, this may be the first S&C song I've been able to learn by ear. I always said I wanted to be in S&C - and it's because I write little songs that sound like tiny bits of S&C songs. Always have, even before I knew who S&C was.The second tune does not sound like a typical new S&C song, which is a nice change. Besides an unusual (for S&C) acoustic guitar, it features a bass line that recalls a great old Unrest song called "West Coast Love Affair". Nice. If I have to be reminded of something, Unrest will do just fine. Then there's another ho-hum tune, then a mellow one stretched out to ten minutes which - because the song's now in my head - also recalls that Unrest bass line. Hmm. Not a bad effort, but I wish they'd branch out a little bit more.
Heh... there's a sixth, titular, song, which did not make it to my iPod because I'd unchecked it in iTunes. It is apparently one of Sam Prekop's new programmed synthy electro-bloopy soundscapes. No!
Two raquos: »» - Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca. In certain moods, I love this; in other moods, it's hard to take. The songs are complex and jittery: constantly shifting sounds and rhythms, disjointed; samples of instruments and vocals pop in and out; contrasting sounds are slapped against each other: brittle and angular King Crimson-ish guitar interjections in one ear and delicate harmonies in the other. Somehow, the overall effect is not always as grating as you might think; the careening melodies remind me a bit of the utterly brilliant St. Vincent; and there are tons of really nice parts in every song. But sometimes, I wish they'd just stick with something for more than a few bars. It's definitely a record that demands an open and adventurous state of mind, and close listening is rewarded. But, it's tough to find that mood, and that time.
Three raquos: »»»
ok-cleek
I guess I could use some rearranging
My new years resolution to listen to more music has come to a shuddering halt and I haven’t got anything new for a while. I’ve mainly been listening to Radiohead and PJ Harvey plus the usual random shuffle of existing stuff.
However, I read an article about Mercury Rev’s ‘Deserter Songs’ in Word magazine this month and thought I should give it a listen before realising I already have a copy and that it was purged from iTunes a while back. So I shall get it on my phone and give it a go as I’m sure I liked it the last time I heard it.
Was playing ‘Hey Joe’ on my SG last night and realised I didn’t have any Hendrix on my phone. My phone has only 16Gb of capacity and I have 80Gb of music so I have had to be selective … but omitting Hendrix is unforgivable and will finally spur me into dishing out £50 for a 32Gb microSD card.
Great to see more Anita – a note on her style from Wiki:
“O’Day always maintained that the accidental excision of her uvula during a childhood tonsillectomy left her incapable of vibrato, and unable to maintain long phrases. That botched operation, she claimed, forced her to develop a more percussive style based on short notes and rhythmic drive. However, when she was in good voice she could stretch long notes with strong crescendos and a telescoping vibrato, e.g. her live version of ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’ at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, captured in Bert Stern’s film Jazz on a Summer’s Day.”
if I may, after so long; Bitte Orca deserves a second/third/fourth/fifth listen, until it works. It is utterly brilliant in its odd simplicity, but totally complete in its complexity. One of my “must have” records.