Day 0904 - Sincere

M.J. Cole "Sincere" (2000)

 

Cole was classically trained in oboe and piano.  He got a job as a tape operator and sound engineer for a drum and bass label which fuelled a love for electronic music.

I was kind of surprised at first.  I'd read something about him being into garage so I'd assumed it was garage-rock as that genre was due to become big in the next few years; instead it was the electronic genre of garage  ...I guess it makes sense.  You have house music, why wouldn't you have garage music?  I'm sure the garden shed music is just around the corner.

To my electronica layman's ears this sounds like interesting enough electronic music with touches of pop and soul, but nothing I feel I'll need to revisit.   The most interesting parts to me are the poppier ones like 70 funk-esque track "Rough Out Here" or single "Crazy Love" with its belting vocal.

There are some hints of Cole's classical training with pianos and strings popping up in places.  

Day 0544 - Rattlesnakes

Lloyd Cole and the Commotions "Rattlesnakes" (1984)

Lloyd was obsessed with Bob Dylan and certainly seems to have taken a similarly literary approach to his lyric writing.  However, his vocal style seem to sail in between the slow murmur of Lou Reed and the vaguely neurotic yelp of David Byrne early in his Talking Heads days.

The music, likewise, seems to move between countries; sometimes sounding like the Engish alt-rock wash sound of the Cure, and sometimes evoking the US through a dusty desert folk rock sound, or the college rock' of early REM.