Day 0895 - I See a Darkness" (1999)

Bonnie Prince Billy "I See a Darkness" (1999)

Will Oldham had been making music for a while under different aliases.  As well as his own name, he’d recorded with groups named Palace Brothers and Palace Music.  Oldham explained the reason for these changing names was that he was making different music with each ensemble/project so wanted to signpost this with the name changes.

This is the first album released under the Bonnie “Prince” Billy nom de plume, and he seems to have stuck with it since then.

The sound here is a kind of delicate, gloomy folk.   It's really subdued, stripped down, acoustic and brilliant with occasional rocking outbursts.  "Nomadic Revery" kind of reminds me of Nirvana unplugged covering the Meat Puppets.  Tracks elsewhere could be favourably compared to Nick Cave's "The Boatman's Call" album.

The album was well received critically and other artists looked to cover the songs, most notably Johnny Cash covering the title track on one of his "American Recordings" albums.

Day 0888 - The Contino Sessions

Death in Vegas “The Contino Sessions” (1999)

The band were originally called ‘Dead Elvis’, but as it tunred out this was the name of an existing record label.  They changed their name to the thematically similar ‘Death in Vegas’ and used the Dead Elvis moniker for their first album instead.

The Contino Sessions (named for their recording space) is their second album.  The blurb in the book mentioned DJing and electronica and I’d thought that I’d be getting something very much in that musical arena.   I was quite surprised then to hear the opening track “Dirge” that starts with a sparse guitar line and vocals, then eventually builds to a Shoe-gazey wall of guitar noise.  

There are definitely electronic elements here (electronic beats, loops) but the sound veers between the aforementioned shoegazey sound and triphop, with shoe-gaze/wall-of-guitar band Jesus and Mary Chain’s vocalist Jim Reid featuring on one track “Broken Little Sister”.  Actually, that one sounded a bit familiar to me.

The second track “Soul Auctioneer” features a sinister, subdued groove that would not feel out of place on an early Massive Attack album.   Iggy Pop features spoken word vocals on “Aisha”, meanwhile the track “Aladdin’s Story” is a rare burst of upbeat melody amongst the gloom… though even there, it’s deceptive.  The few lyrics are hardly uplifting “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen/Nobody knows my sorrow”.

Day 0869 - Ray of Light

Madonna “Ray of Light”

When a long-standing popular artist starts dabbling in the musical fashion of the day, it can often be an embarrassing and ineffective attempt to stay relevant.  I think that Madonna is different in this respect because (a) she works with good people, like producer/remixer extraordinaire William Orbit, and (b) she commits to the new direction.  She doesn’t try and just do what she was doing before but adopting affectations of the genre she’s working with, she fully ‘leans in’ to it and changes her vocal style to suit.

Mads had recently become a mother and embraced Kabballah, which led to a more reflective approach to her songwriting.

There’s the moody, electronic minimalism of album opener “Drowned World” and closer “Mer Girl”.  Lead single “Frozen” is similarly restrained and moody but bursts forth into a beautiful string arrangement.

The euphoric poppy title track almost feels out of place among the other material, but does link into the more middle-eastern sound that is being explored elsewhere on the album.  "Candy Perfume Girl" has a nice funky, loping groove, and there’s a song in Sanskrit "Shanti/Ashtangi".

Though I’m less of a fan of some of her more recent work, with Madonna’ s mixing of genres, her acting work and releasing books ranging from children’s books to books of erotica, I hope that when she does depart the mortal coil that she’s remembered alongside other multi-faceted artistic chameleons like say ,Bowie.

Day 0862 - Clandestino

Manu Chao "Clandestino" (1998)

This is one that sounded good on paper, but didn't necessarily pan out to my tastes. 

 

After the breakup of his punk-influenced band (Manu Negra), multilingual singer/songwriter Chao travelled around with a multi-track recorder.  Influenced by different street music, but flirting subtly with a range of other genres, he recorded his first solo album.

I'd heard Chao's name around the place and was keen to find out what he was about, but I'm reasonably apathetic with the actual record.

There's a bit of an overuse of syncopated reggae-style guitar, and I'm not really a fan of Chao's voice.  The music isn't bad, but I also don't think it's as diverse as advertised.   "Bongo Bong" is a quirky little pop song, and I quite like the bleeps and bloops of "Je ne t'aime plus", but in general the album didn't really excite me.

Day 0830 - Second Toughest in the Infants

Underworld "Second Toughest in the Infants" (1996)

Another electronic album... though I guess the genre was going through something of a renaissance at this point.    

The members of Underworld had started off playing electro pop in a couple of different bands.  Even the early incarnation of Underworld itself had been more in an electro-rock, electro-pop direction.  The band enlisted DJ Darren Emerson and moved more fully into techno/electronica, working with pulsing beats and repetitive looped musical ideas.

This approach creates the musical bed for the minimalist and again often repeated vocals.   There was a time when I didn't really dig this style of music, I preferred a constant influx of new ideas or at least some regular evolution of the main idea.   I think now I'm less able to absorb that unless I'm focussing solely on the music.   I used to be able to listen to quite complex all-over-the-show music while reading a book or writing etc, but now I find I need to give a lot more attention to my listening.   Having something that loops and repeats that I can wander in and out of has an ever increasing appeal.

Day 0801- Liquid Swords

GZA/Genius "Liquid Swords" (1995)

The Wu Tang Clan were on a roll.   From their debut "Enter the Wu Tang (36 Chambers)" to solo releases from Method Man, Ol Dirty Bastard and Raekwon.

Like those albums, "Liquid Swords" was recorded in RZA's basement studio.   The album features samples from the film "Shogun Assassin" and GZA said that he was going for a more cinematic approach to the album.

It's kind of like what I was saying about the Smashing Pumpkins in entry 791 - when artists are firing creatively it feels like everything they touch is gold, and it makes sense to mine the vein while that's happening.  While I wasn't a fan of some of Raekwon's rhymes, I have to admit that everything RZA was doing around this time is solid.   I liked GZA's rhymes too, the two work well together.

Multiple other Wu members and affiliates feature, almost suggesting they could have just popped a new Wu album out every month if they'd wanted to.  But nice that they gave each other the space to do their own things without alienating each other.

Day 0733 - Dry

PJ Harvey "Dry" (1992)

Things that I learned doing this list - number... whatever:  PJ Harvey, like Marilyn Manson and Alice Cooper, used to be the name of a band as well as its titular lead singer.

Polly Jean had been raised by parents who exposed her to different styles of music.  She'd played in the ensemble Bologne and the folk duo Polekats.  She contributed saxophone, guitar and backing vocals to the group Automatic Dlamini.   During that time she had been honing her own songwriting talents, until finally she was ready to start her own band, along with two members of Automatic Dlamini.

After two critically well-received singles, PJ Harvey released her/their first album.   The music is stripped-down, raw rock with PJ (the person) hissing, howling, wailing and growling over the top.  There's noisy guitar, there are parts that are just stripped down to bass and vocals, but it doesn't just sound like indie-rock, you get a feeling that some of PJ's other musical background in folk, pop and jazz are floating around just below the surface.

The album laid down the gauntlet that has seen PJ (MBE)(the person) take up and maintain 'musical icon' status.

Day 0678 - Ritual de lo Habitual

Jane's Addiction "Ritual de lo Habitual" (1990) - got it

The last album before the tumultuous Jane's broke up (for the first time). 

It really is "an album of two halves".  The first 5 tracks are more or less stand-alone rock songs, including the brilliant "Been caught stealing".  The last 4 songs take you on a journey, musically and emotionally with songs written for Farrell's mother who committed suicide, and his girlfriend who overdosed.  The songs are drawn out alternative rock epics with synthesisers, piano and strings on "Then she did..." which almost touches on Zeppelin's 'Kashmir' or "Stairway' in its scope and power.   That is followed by the brilliantly left-field middle-eastern flavoured "Of course" with heavily featured violin, plodding, elephantine percussion and Farrell's voice hitting new heights of nasal-ness.... nasality?

Day 0662 - Done by the Forces of Nature

The Jungle Brothers "Done by the Forces of Nature" (1989)

 
The Brothers beefed up their classic rap sound with elements of jazz, world music, house, funk and Afrobeat.  According to the book, the group were accused of selling out, but history appears to have vindicated the them, with the album being pegged quite high on several ranked lists, not to mention retrospective reviews generally lauding the album.

Day 0648 - Raw Like Sushii

Neneh Cherry "Raw Like Sushi" (1989)

It was almost a foregone conclusion that Neneh Cherry would become an artist of some description.  She was born to a painter mother and a musician father.  After parting with Neneh's father, her mother would go on to marry jazz trumpeter Don Cherry (who famously worked with Ornette Coleman, mentioned two posts earlier).  Neneh travelled the world, played in a number of bands (including punkers the Slits), and she deejayed, exploring rap and reggae among other genres.

Her husband was a producer for the first Massive Attack album (on which Neneh would also worked).  The album has hints of that sound, of looped beats and soundscapes that feel like they have a foot in the club and a foot on the street, but with a bit more of a pop and rap slant.

Neneh promoted the strength of women, and the power of motherhood, having done tv performances heavily pregnant or carrying her infant child.  Definitely some of the songs here touch on the topic of motherhood with "Inna City Mamma" and "The Next Generation".

Day 0373 - Out of the Blue

Electric Light Orchestra "Out of the Blue" (1977)

Jeff Lynne once made the daring declaration that ELO would pick up where the Beatles left off but still presenting it on stage rather than being a studio-bound unit.

I was quite surprised to see that this was actually the 7th album by the band, they're a tad more prolific than I'd thought.  They're even prolific within the album itself, it's a double LP, over 70 minutes long and includes a 3-part 12+ minute 'concerto' that took up much of one of the sides.

This album sounds like the work of someone who could easily have 3 or 4 different bands on the go to explore all of his musical ideas, but I find it enjoyable to have the mix of elements such as rock, prog, classical, pop and even hints of disco all fighting for space on one album. I've always liked what I've heard from ELO. This album in particular sounds to me, almost like a meshing of the Beatles and 80s era Queen, among other things.

Day 0364 - Ramones

Ramones "Ramones" (1976)

One of the original punk albums that totally lives up to its hype.  Right out of the gate, it's a blistering stampede of raw rock.  Stripped of grandiosity complex virtuosity that had become prevalent in certain areas of rock, to present an "anyone can play" style of music.

There are so many great tracks here, 'Blitzkrieg bop', 'Beat on the brat', 'Today your love, tomorrow the world', 'Havana affair', and the surprisingly dark '53rd and 3rd' written about a street hustler taking violent action... legend/rumour suggested that Dee-Dee Ramone was writing in a somewhat autobiographical frame.

Surprisingly for an early punk album, it was fairly well received critically on its release, though not with the sales to match.

Day 0360 - Rocks

Aerosmith "Rocks" (1976)

A quick follow-up to the successful 'Toys' album.  With lyrics about sex, drugs, rock and the music industry.

I would say that it has less obvious 'hits' than 'Toys' but I really enjoyed the riffage across it. "Lick and a promise" has an especially enjoyable, heavy groove.

Day 0018 - Sarah Vaughan at Mister Kelly's

Sarah Vaughan "Sarah Vaughan at Mister Kelly's" (1958) - got it

I LOVE Sarah Vaughan, she just has the most amazing vocal control and range of any jazz/popular singer I can think of.

I'm not usually a fan of live albums but Vaughan sounds note perfect, the recording quality is great, and you get the added charm of Vaughan's extra vocal gymnastics, her sassy banter with the crowd, and her quick-thinking ad-libs any time she happens to forget a lyric.

It's hard to tell, given that it's a sound recording, but at one point it sounds like she knocked over her lyric sheets.  Certainly at one point she ad-libs and scats the lyrics for an entire song ("how high the moon")

Day 0006 - Ellington at Newport

Duke Ellington "Ellington at Newport"

The Duke had suffered the fate of most big jazz bandleaders in the second half of the 20th century a major drop in popularity despite the fact that he continued to tour solidly.

Despite swing's fall from grace, Duke's band's set at Newport ending up being a raging success.  The record company (as record companies are wont to do) rushed to capitalise on it and release this album... only to find that recordings of the show were pretty damaged.  Columbia dealt with this by getting Ellington into the studio to re-record the set.  The album was then patched together using the studio recordings, surviving pieces of the live recordings, and assorted canned applause.

Apparently there has since been a recording pieced together of the original show and it is something special... to be fair though, this version is great too; just a tight band playing some hot music!