Day 0808 - Dust

Screaming Trees "Dust" (1996)

Screaming Trees and their dust-throated vocliast Mark Lanegan have always drifted in and out of my orbit.   I first heard the Screaming Tress through their brilliant song "Nearly lost you" from the soundtrack Cameron Crowe's grunge-centric film "Singles".   Even though I loved that song I didn't really think to check out any more of their music.

A few years later a friend was well into the Mark Lanegan band and I listened to a couple of their albums but left it at that again.   Then a few years later, I saw Lanegan perform with the band the Soulsavers and a friend who is very much a Lanegan afficiando helped me discover a lot more of his work (solo, with Belle & Sebastian's Isobel Campbell, with Duke Garwood, Gutter Twins, Twilight Singers...).   Basically, sometimes I'm a slow learner.

Anyway, back to "Dust".   The basic foundation of this album seems to be the Beatles' Revolver and Rubber Soul albums, it has that mix of hard rock with middle-eastern sounds and a wash of psychedelia.   I guess those sounds, mixed with a little more distortion and with Lanegan's gravelly voice somehow manages to sound rock hard, the album is too good to fob off as "just another grunge record".

Great songs with occasional touches of gospel backing vocals that seem to signpost what was to come as far as Lanegan's work with the Soulsavers goes.

Day 0372 - Exodus

Bob Marley and the Wailers "Exodus" (1977) - got it

A bit of a change from my usual "all reggae sounds the same" spiel.  Though there are a few familiar reggae musical devices here; there is also a healthy dose of variety, with everything from scratchy organic reggae through to soul, pop and proto-disco elements finding their way into the mix.

While songs like "One love", "Jamming" and "Three little birds" are definitely reggae, they are also pretty solid pop songs.  Bob does a good job of balancing his political messages with some more universal messages.

It's a surprisingly upbeat record considering that Marley had recently relocated to England after a gunman injured him and his wife in their home during a murder attempt.