Day 0740 - Whatever

Aimee Mann "Whatever" (1993)

Aimee had been bassist and vocalist for the band Til Tuesday, who had a successful Mann-penned single "Voices Carry".   The band broke up and Mann pursued her solo career.

This is Aimee's first solo album and it's brilliant for a couple of reasons.  First and foremost, Mann is an amazing songwriter.  She's another of those rare songwriters whose lyrics actually made me stop and take notice, she has real way with words.  The ballad "I know there's a word" is brilliant and affecting while still being tastefully opaque.

The other reason is that Mann enlisted the help of Til Tuesday touring member and multi-instrumentalist Jon Brion, who would go on to produce my favourite Fiona Apple album as well as albums by such adventurous souls as the Eels, David Byrne, and Rufus Wainright.

The music has a bit of a country lilt to it, maybe a hint of Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, and then (possibly courtesy of Brion) a subtle theatricality in places.

I thoroughly enjoyed this.  It's almost the opposite to a lot of albums, in that rather than being a bit front-loaded, it gets better the further into the tracklist you go so that you end on a high note, ready to revisit the songs.

Day 0646 - Spy vs Spy

John Zorn "Spy vs Spy" (1989) - got it

It's a shame to see some artists get almost their entire discography included in this book, while someone with as varied an oeuvre as John Zorn only gets this one.   

In some ways its an appropriate enough album, a bit of a microcosm for what Zorn is about: it takes familiar elements (the free-jazz compositions of Ornette Coleman, elements of hardcore, hints of Carl Stalling's cartoon music, and metal grind) and mixes it together to form something original.  Dishing out short bursts of sound.
On the other hand, it's not the most diverse or representative of Zorn's albums (not reflecting the more melodic sides of his sound, the breadth of his soundtrack work, or his passion for traditional Jewish music), it doesn’t feature any original compositions from the prolific Zorn, and the unrelenting sonic pummelling does risk becoming a bit samey by the end.

Zorn's goal here had been to try and reimagine Coleman's compositions while reinvigorating the shock factor they would have had when they were first unveiled.   Zorn and the other sax player Tim Berne are panned either side and improvving over an amazing rhythm section.  They're like "you want some hard bop rhythm?  Not a problem.   What's that?  Blast beats... yeah, sure thing". 

Free free jazz.

Day 0564 - Cupid & Psyche 85

Scritti Politti "Cupid & Psyche 85" (1985)

I was quite looking forward to this based on the description: a loose musical collective who had been noodling around in post-punk experimentalism, but (having heard Quincy Jones' production on Michael Jackson's albums) decided to delve into the world of pop.  I ended up feeling slightly underwhelmed by it.

The band had enlisted some seasoned session players and sprinkled everything with some studio gloss, but the songs just feel like they're not memorable enough, and the gloss is a little thick so the songs seem to lose their 'oomph' a bit.  Possibly it's just that this sound is, 'aesthetically', not in line with my tastes.