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 0825 - Tellin' Stories

The Charlatans "Tellin' Stories" (1996)

The band had to promote themselves as the UK Charlatans when touring the US due to a band over there having prior claim to the name.   Maybe they should have called themselves 'the New Charlatans'.
 

The music is an organ-heavy rock sound, with nasally vocals... not surprising then that the band had supported Oasis for their 1996 shows at Knebworth.   Kind of like the Oasis sound but mixed with a bit of the 'Madchester' style, more dance-esque beats and swirly guitars.

Not too bad, a few catchy numbers, but not one that has really stuck with me too much after listening to it.  The track "How can you leave us" kind of reminded me in places of the equally catchy rock of "Long Grass" by the New Zealand band Pan Am.

Day 0572 - The Colour of Spring

Talk Talk "The Colour of the Spring"

 
Talk Talk, one of the earlier bands to employ the new sound of synthesizers is here, one of the first bands to abandon them.  The synths are ousted for pianos, organs and interesting guitar textures, and the results are brilliant!

There is some competent pop-rock in the shape of "Life's What You Make it" and "Happiness is Easy" which has a moody trumpet solo and a child choir to lift it above standard fare.  There are some moodier tracks like "Chameleon Day", where Mark Hollis' haunting tenor backed with a semi-classical backdrop of piano and keyboards almost predicts the moodier moments of A Perfect Circle.

Day 0400 - The Only Ones

The Only Ones "The Only Ones" (1978)

A band who were getting started just before punk took off in the UK, but managed to hitch a ride on that wave, angling their power-pop, rock, and occasionally slightly psychedelic sound to be a near enough fit for the genre. The band broke up in the early 80s due to inner turmoil, drugs and all the usual stuff. They reunited in 2006 after one of their songs was used in a vodafone ad which brought them back into the public consciousness.

I hadn't heard of them (and didn't mind them particularly earthshaking), but their songs have been covered by REM and the Libertines, so it's not a stretch to think that they probably influenced those bands.