I had intended to do a joint post on the film, TV, and music I had like last year. But when I started taking pics of the vinyl I had got this year, it seemed easier to just do a post for music than film and TV together. Here are the music choices I have loved this year. In no order, really
As I am listening to this at the moment and it is a recent buy the live album of the National concert in Rome captures a band at the top of their game with a mix of guitar and keyboards and the singers intelligent lyrics they are the natural heirs of REM easy to see they mention them in a couple of their songs.
Father John Misty, or J. Tilman, was in Fleet Foxes but has now gone on his own path with songs that capture the madness of everyday life and always manage to make them sound epic.
Now, I have had this film soundtrack on cassette and CD, but when I saw the vinyl, I had to get it. One of my all-time favourite films, Wim WENDERS Flawed but genuinely epic road Trip around the World, is caught in songs by his favourite artists, which most are mine. What is this film’s four-hour-plus director’s cut if you ever get a chance?
If there is a theme to most of my buys this year, it is old friends returning, and this is a perfect example. Out of the blue, the Cure returned with an album that reminded me of their earlier darker albums, which are the ones I loved. My best friend at college styled herself on Robert Smith down to the make-up on special days. I, as many a young chap, then styled myself on the sad singer of the smiths, regrettably given the vile nature of his politics these days.
A band and singer I wish I had paid more attention to is Jason Molina. Sadly, he died a few years ago, but he was between Neil Young and Country, and this is his best album. I also love the cover. Maybe this inspired the Kim character in the recent Star Wars skeleton crew episode.
Another old friend, Paul Heaton, is one of the few artists Amanda and I like. We saw him a while ago and have booked to see him again next year. Again, no one captures Britishness so well as he does in his lyrics.
It’s one of those bands I have loved for years, but no one ever really got The Wolfgang Press. They were on 4ad, even this cover is a nod to that, just a band that couldn’t be pigeonholed, a mix of new wave and many other influences. Seeing them return with a new album after 20-plus years is excellent.
Nick Cave, what more to say? I am slowly replacing my CDs of his works with vinyl, a return to form for me; it has echoes of earlier songs and records.
One can never get enough of the Waterboys, and this collection of all the stuff they did for the album This is the Sea shows how the record evolved. It’s a collection of CDs, though.
I think, especially the way the world is at the moment, we all need a little angry punk to jump around and get mad, too, and no one does it better than this bunch from Bristol.
Another old friend is the Tinderstick, soulful songs about loss and life, another band that I have been into for many years. Worth watching the fun videos for a couple of the tracks on this album.
An orchestra of disabled musicians, with Brett Anderson and others singing songs around death, sees Brett tackling some of his Suede songs with a new feeling alongside songs like The Killing Moon and Nightporter, both favourite songs.
One of the bands the last few years I have like is Black Midi a band that throws lots of style together well, they split, and the lead singer brought this album out imaging Tom Waits, Steely Dan a Mexican band and Mark E. Smith of the Fall forced to make an album this would be near it the lead single Holy Holy is a story of a man hiring a prostitute told in Geordie greep unique vocal style was one of those songs I just listen and listened too
Another band that returned was THE THE as Maria in my local record shop was the cover art meant to look a little like Nigel Farage! A band needed for now, Matt Johnson had struggled for years to capture new music, but when he finally has, it is just as good as anything from the 80s he did. It is worth watching The Inertia Variations, the film made about his struggle to move on musically.
Finally, one mention of an audio essay or drama by Robin Mackay, is a weird mix of ambient music story and fact about the lost village town of Dulwich of the east coast of England a tale that inspire HP Lovecraft to write about it
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