Day 0855 - Time Out of Mind

Bob Dylan "Time Out of Mind" (1997)

Dylan had been some 6-7 years without any original material, existing instead on cover songs and revisiting his past glories.   He reunited with producer Daniel Lanois, regular producer for U2, and Peter Gabriel, and who had also produced Dylan's own "Oh Mercy" album.

By all accounts the sessions seem to have been cluttered with two drummers and  a multitude of other musicians on the sessions.... I'm sure Phil Spector would have approved.

Dylan later expressed mixed feelings about the recording, and one critic described it as Lanois' CV... well if that's the case, I'd hire him.   I really enjoyed the album.

I'm typically 50/50 on Bob Dylan as I don't focus much on lyrics and that's obviously known to be his main strength.  I'm more interested in what he's doing musically and how the words fit around that sound-wise.   From opener "Love Sick" this is a murky blues album, one of those ones that sounds like it'd make a great soundtrack for driving (maybe through a desert night).  The dense sound eases up temporarily for piano ballad "Make you feel my love" then back onto the highway for the last couple of tracks, including the epic 16+ minute closing track "Highlands".

Dylan's nasal voice had settled into a weary, gravelly drawl which suits this music nicely.

Day 0617 - Superfuzz Bigmuff

Mudhoney "Superfuzz Bigmuff" (1988)

One of the earlier grunge albums, and featuring a decent cross section of the talent/incest involved in the Seattle scene.  The drummer was in Nirvana (for all of one song), the bass-player was in the Melvins, and the other two members were in bands with future Pearl Jam Members.

This EP is named after two guitar effects pedals favoured by the band: the Univox Super-Fuzz and the Electro-Harmonix Big Muff.  The record was produced by Jack Endino, who also produced SubPop releases for bands such as Soundgarden, L7 and Nirvana.  Really just adds to the grunge pedigree of it.

The music was indicative of where some of those Seattle bands were heading at the time: Punk rock rawness and energy but with a touch more melody, embracing swirling walls of psychedelic noise guitar and with more than just a touch of Black Sabbath to the whole thing.