Thursday 30 May 2019

Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra - Kollaps Tradixionales


I've been gradually working on my Silver Mt Zion back-catalogue ever since Fuck Off Get Free We Pour Light on Everything blew my socks off in 2014 and became my album-of-the-year. That process has been very gradual - so far averaging two years between purchases. I could happily increase this frequency, but I just don't see the albums in records shops often enough. Still, it's giving me good time to get into each record as I buy it.

The second Silver Mt Zion album I bought was this double 10" copy of Kollaps Tradixionales, which happens to be the album before Fuck Off... (and, as it happens, the third purchase at the start of this year was the one before this one; it appears that I'm working backwards). Norman Records had one of their big sales on and I got it quite discounted - I can't remember the original price, but I paid just under £16 for this, which is a good price. The package is really lovely - Godspeed levels of attention paid to every part - there are two posters, a book, a lyrics sheet (which I have two of, for some reason) and the album on cd. The attention to detail throughout is incredible. I still love the line "and everybody sang" in the notes.

The album itself is really good too. It didn't grab me as instantly as Fuck Off... but over the years I'd say it's settled at a point where I listen to them about as much as each other. Kollaps makes clever use of the four sides of vinyl, grouping the songs on each - it's bookended by two 15 minute songs that take up whole sides of 10" each. There is a Light is a very positive and triumphant song benefiting from some extra horns, Efrim's vocals straining just before Sophie and Jessica take over singing the same lines much more softly. As per my thoughts on the first time I heard the band, Efrim's vocals aren't an easy listen, but they're such a major part of the band you have to love them a bit. Side two features two songs about "metal birds", some punkier songs as far as the band go; side three has the three "collapse" songs, which are the more slow, reflective songs on the album (although the third has a huge riff). 'Piphany Rambler is probably the highlight of the lot, another grand affair sprawling over quarter of an hour, the strings carrying the mid-section beautifully and building to a huge, messy, perfect post-rock ending.

It's going to take me years to get through all the band's albums at this rate - expect more posts far in the future.

Format: Double 10", book, two posters, insert, cd
Tracks: 7
Cost: £15.74 new
Bought: Norman Records
When: 29/03/16
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: cd





Wednesday 29 May 2019

Led Zeppelin - IV


Once upon a time, charity shops were a great place to find good old albums on vinyl. But long before the "vinyl revival" really kicked in, it seemed that either no one was giving away any good records, or the shops realised that they could get more for some of the better records by selling them online. And so, for most of the time I've been buying records, charity shops have not been the fruitful picking ground they used to be (for vinyl at least, I've consistently found gems on cds over the years and love buying something I might not usually because it was 50p in a charity shop).

On 1st December 2018, I found that rare treat - a newly arrived box of records in a charity shop that no one had had the good sense to send off to be sold online. In fact, it was three boxes of records from the 70's and 80's, all in incredible condition that I think had only just been dropped off. I immediately started trawling through them and was amazed to find the likes of Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan and Led Zeppelin. I asked the woman at the counter how much they were and to my amazement she replied "three for £1"! I'd struck charity shop gold. My heart was pacing a bit as I went through all three boxes and pulled out most of the Floyd and Zeppelin back-catalogues. I've been gradually working on those two back-catalogues on cd, but was more than happy to swap over to vinyl at those prices. There were two early REM albums and more Dylan than you could shake a stick at; I have a tricky relationship with Dylan, so only opted for The Times They Are A-Changin' (a classic by any measure) and At Budokan (to get a wide mix of stuff). There was also a Roger Walters solo album that I bought out of curiosity more than anything else - I don't think many Floyd fans consider having all the various solo albums an essential part of any collection.

Now is a good time to mention the slight guilt I felt at leaving the shop with 18 albums I'd just paid £6 for. A better person might have told them that these albums are worth considerably more than "three for £1" and offered to pay a few £ each. An even better person might have looked on Discogs, checked the details and seen that the copy of Animals by Pink Floyd was the Italian first edition and worth in the region of £30 alone - not a fortune, but quite a lot more than I was about to pay for it. I, however, am not a good person, it seems. I did leave a lot of records that probably had reasonable value - including a lot of Dylan albums and a Kraftwerk album in very good condition - I could have bought all these and sold them for profit; I'm not the worst person, but definitely occupying a place on the lower end of the ladder. When I went back a few weeks later, all of the records had gone, so either someone else had taken advantage, or they'd finally seen the value in shipping them off to be sold somewhere else.

A minor addition to this story (and possibly a factor in deciding exactly how much of a bad person I am) - the reason I was in the charity shop was because I'd taken the baby for a walk to the supermarket, but decided to swing by the local charity shops first. Whilst I looked through every LP in those three boxes, I periodically waved my spare hand in front of my daughter's face to make sure she wasn't getting too bored. I loaded up the pram with my LPs and rushed home, in my excitement entirely forgetting to actually go to the supermarket. "Did you get the shopping?" "Better than that..."

Anyway, this is a lot of waffling about things that aren't Led Zeppelin IV. I've been listening to Zeppelin for longer than I can remember as they're one of the bands my dad loved; I remember him once turning the radio off in the car about two minutes from home because Stairway to Heaven was starting and he didn't want to start listening to it if he couldn't finish it. Somewhere in his record collection is also a copy of this LP.

I bought a copy of Led Zepp IV on cd in HMV in my second year of university. I was clearly very influenced by my housemate Matt on that trip, because I bought Led Zepp IV, Radiohead's Pablo Honey and Jeff Buckley's Grace, all bands he was a huge fan of (it was one of their four-for-£20 deals, which at the time was a great deal; I also bought King for Day by Faith No More). I knew of the importance of the band far more than I really knew the songs, so that cd was meant to be the beginning of me getting into the band properly. Somehow, nearly 15 years passed before I bought any more Led Zeppelin, a strange act I can't quite explain. In that time, I got into a lot of other music, and I guess I just didn't have the time to dedicate to Zeppelin too. Also, whilst I like Led Zeppelin, they're not a band I'm hugely passionate about (a sentence that I'm sure be controversial to certain people); I'm a casual fan at best.

Black Dog and Rock and Roll are a great opening duo and everything I want from Led Zeppelin - huge riffs, heavy and crazy amounts of energy. Stairway to Heaven is, of course, Stairway to Heaven - the unfuckwithable epic that everyone knows. It's a great song and deserves the endless praise it gets - the drums are a particular highlight. I'm sure no post-rock band would call it an influence, but that overall song structure - the gradual build-up and ultimate release - can be seen countless times throughout my collection. Songs like The Battle of Evermore and Going to California are less my thing - perhaps an album full of Led Zeppelin riffs would be too much to take, so maybe these songs serve more of a purpose than I'm giving them credit for. When the Levee Breaks closes the album with another ridiculously huge riff. I'm probably one of the few people who was introduced to this song by the A Perfect Circle cover rather than the original. Robert Plant's vocals here are impeccable.

It's going to take me years to write about all the other albums I bought that day; it's been six months and I've still not had a chance to play them all (I am purposely spreading them out, to give each its time). I'll try to avoid telling the whole story again each time.

Format: 12", gatefold sleeve, picture sleeve
Tracks: 8
Cost: £0.33 second hand
Bought: Blue Cross, Kidlington
When: 01/12/18
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no




Tuesday 28 May 2019

Shellac - Excellent Italian Greyhound


Sometimes I think I could watch Shellac play The End of Radio, the first song here, for a full set. Sure, Bob would get bored and I'm not sure Todd could hold the snare drum above his head for a whole hour, but the smile on my face would be ridiculous. Ever since the first time I saw Shellac, watching them play this song has been a highlight. Shellac, unlike a lot of rock bands, understand that you don't need to play all the instruments all the time, and this song is a perfect example of that - the only constant is Bob's bass, slowly and gradually varying; Todd's drums reduced to one key instrument and Steve only going near his guitar in the chorus. I love it. This version is eight-and-a-half minutes, but live it goes on for as long as Steve can ramble.

The rest of the album is a great Shellac album, but my love for The End of Radio kind of dwarves the other songs. Steady as She Goes has a great riff and Be Prepared is another live highlight of any Shellac set. Genuine Lulabelle ruins the flow a bit, but the unusually twinkly guitars on Boycott get things going again. Spoke is a brilliantly frantic way to finish the album.

I'd been listening to Shellac for a long time before I finally got Excellent Italian Greyhound - in fact it was the last of their albums I bought (including Dude Incredible), only because I didn't see it in record shops any sooner. It's fitting that when I finally bought it, it was in Spillers, the shop that introduced me to the band through 1000 Hurts eight years earlier (a notable highlight of the Tuesday-record-from-Spillers year).

Of course, one of the most notable things about Excellent Italian Greyhound is Todd's dog Uffizi, the namesake and star of all the artwork. At the Shellac-curated All Tomorrow's Parties one of the most curious things we stumbled across on the chalet TV was a documentary about Italian greyhounds on an American show called Dogs 101. If you've not seen it, it's on YouTube and definitely needs a watch - you'll not see the band in the same way again (but in a good way).

Format: 12", gatefold sleeve, picture sleeve, outer sleeve
Tracks: 9
Cost: £14 new
Bought: Spillers Records
When: 15/11/14
Colour: Black
Etching: Side A: "Pronto prova..." Side B: "A isamu sta lapa!
mp3s: cd included




Monday 27 May 2019

Turbonegro - Scandinavian Leather


Scandinavian Leather and Party Animals are probably the two most similar Turbonegro albums - both start with a gentle intro, both have mostly black covers, and both have one truly incredible song that stands a mile away from the rest and means the album becomes a bit of a waiting game for that one song (Fuck the World here, and City of Satan on Party Animals, in case you were curious). Whilst Apocalypse Dudes was part of the trilogy with those two, it sits apart because it is filled to brim with huge songs.

As a result, if you took all the songs from those two and asked me which album they were on, I'd struggle to say. That's not a criticism as such, but I'd recognise an Ass Cobra song from an Apocalypse Dudes song instantly. The innuendo and sex references are more blunt here than elsewhere - Sell Your Body (To the Night), Train of Flesh, Wipe it 'Til it Bleeds to name but a few; the latter is an amusing song and a comical start, but was never going to be a classic. Gimme Some has some very classic Turbonegro melodies and could sit happily alongside some of their best. Turbonegro Must Be Destroyed is another highlight.

As I mentioned, Fuck the World is the stand-out track and everything about it says "lead single" (except, possibly, the word "fuck" in the title); the production is slick throughout, but it's even tighter here - the strings in the chorus couldn't be further away from the early definition of "death punk" but work perfectly. I've always loved the line "I've got razorblade lips / I'm gonna kiss some wrists".

Anyway, I picked this up in a record store in Melbourne on a trip down there towards the end of my time in Australia. A few months earlier on a trip to New Zealand, my German friend Nadine had been knocking Turbonegro (rather, laughing about a friend of hers getting excited about buying a Turbonegro record - I never got to the bottom of why she disliked them) and I bought a copy of the excellent Alpha Motherfuckers compilation when we rolled into Auckland; she had driven us to Melbourne, so I wonder if I was keen to show her that Turbonegro weren't a band to be laughed at. I can't remember which shop I bought it in - it was possibly the same shop were I bought Tremulant by The Mars Volta and the A Gun Called Tension album, because I don't know if I bought anything in the other record shops I found. I can't remember the name of the shop, but remember it being half a floor beneath street-level and had an incredible collect of strange stuff; I could have spent a lot more in there than I did.

I also bought Apocalypse Dudes on cd on that day. It's a bit unfair on Scandinavian Leather to say this, but Apocalypse Dudes has obviously spent a lot more time getting played than this has. History has certainly shown that to be the stronger album.

Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 13
Cost: £7.74 new
Bought: Melbourne
When: 31/05/06
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: none



Sunday 26 May 2019

Various Artists - Fat Music for Fest People


Fat Wreck Chords compilation cds were a stable of my youth, although I never owned any myself. A bunch of my friends had a few, shared them around and that was how we got into most of the punk bands we knew. Years later I got a copy of Short Music For Short People on vinyl, mostly because the idea of it still amused me and squeezing 101 songs onto one 12" record was equally ridiculous. That compilation was the only one I remember borrowing from a friend when we were at school, but it was my first taster of a lot of bands who would go on to mean a lot to us.

Fast-forward 12-or-so years and I went to Fest for the first time. Fat Wreck Chords had a 10" in countless different colours for sale made for the festival, called Fat Music For Fest People. After picking up our wristbands, Sarah and I both bought a copy from the stall in the registration flea market. In all honestly, I'm not really sure why. I suppose at the start of the weekend, $10 for a record seemed like a bargain, but almost without exception every single album I bought that weekend cost $10. I guess I also wanted to buy it mark my first Fest, wondering if it might become a regular purchase at future Fests; I went once again, but didn't even look to see if there was another issue.

The truth is that I just don't like the bands on Fat Wreck Chords that much, and far too many of them sound identical. I'm now on the fifth song, and if you'd told me that all five of the songs so far had been from the same band I would have believed you. I'd seen Dead to Me and Teenage Bottlerocket that spring supporting The Descendants (at the famously bad Shepherd's Bush show where Milo lost his voice) and been thoroughly bored by them both. Hugh tweeted something along the lines of "if a bomb went off in Shepherd's Bush right now, all of the UK punk scene would be wiped out. But at least Dead to Me would stop playing", which I remember finding amusing.

The second side has a bit more to it - None More Black have a gruff edge and the background "Whoa-ohs" in this song were always going to be a hit for me. Paint it Black bring a bit of hardcore, which is nice. A lot of people I know love that band, but I've never really got into them. I'm sure I'd enjoy them live. I'd seen The Flatliners a few months earlier in Kingston and been underwhelmed by them then. Apparently I saw Old Man Markley and Dillinger Four at Fest that year, but I think both were because I was already in the venue they were playing and wanted to stay there for the band afterwards (Dikembe and Lemuria, respectively). I certainly don't remember much about either.

As samplers go, this hasn't done a great job of making me want to go see the Fat Wreck bands playing Fest that year, but I didn't have a record player with me, so there was no scenario where I'd actually hear this record before the bands played anyway. I don't feel like I missed out on anything, that's for sure.

Format: 10"
Tracks: 10
Cost: £6.20 new
Bought: Fest
When: 28/10/11
Colour: Pink
Etching: none
mp3s: none



Wednesday 22 May 2019

Manic Street Preachers - Generation Terrorists [20th Anniversary LP]


I am the worst person I know. I bought this record nearly eight months ago and I've only just broken the seal. I sometimes wonder if I'm a record collector or just someone who likes spending money.

I'd seen this copy of the 20th anniversary double LP of Generation Terrorists a bunch of times in the Fopp in Oxford and regularly thought "I should buy that". On what would turn out to be my last visit to Fopp before it closed down in the recent HMV collapse, I finally decided to buy a copy. I guess I was feeling rich enough to finally spare £20 on an album I already had eight copies of (yes, eight. Nine if you include the Japanese Stars & Stripes mini-album version). Of course, this version is materially different to the others because it has Theme From M.A.S.H. tacked on the end. It's also remastered, but I'm incapable of ever hearing such differences - even on albums I've heard countless times over the last 20 years (wow, in October it'll be 20 years exactly since I first heard Generation Terrorists - it's funny, at the time it felt like an old album, because it'd been out seven years and they'd already been five different bands, but now to think it was only seven years old makes it seem positively recent). Does it sound nicer because it's been remastered, or is it because it's the newest vinyl copy I have (and not a shitty picture disc)? Who can say.

As well as being remastered, there's a nice 16-page booklet to go along with the release. The boxset version had an arguably nicer booklet featuring the same essay from Simon Price so I've not missed out on any exciting content by not opening it until now. As for Theme From M.A.S.H., I have it on vinyl on a handful of other releases so the appeal of hearing it on vinyl wasn't a big driver. It's interesting though that they decided to append that and not A Vision of Dead Desire like on the Japanese version. M.A.S.H. is definitely the better song, and I guess there's something nice about cramming the other single from that era onto the album.

We should talk about the fact that this incredible album has sat in my collection for so long without the needle going anywhere near the grooves. Basically, I buy more music than I have time to listen to. I'm trying to stop, but it's hard; it's difficult to overcome the habit of a lifetime. Having a baby takes up a lot of my time, and I don't have a record player in a room where I can also play with her (yet - I've got a plan for that). That leaves me with an hour or so each evening to play records. I have a strange commitment to this stupid blog, so when I do finally sit down in front of my turntable I have a choice - play an album I'm yet to play, write about an album or actually spend some time playing those pesky albums that didn't come with a download code (I play everything on the turntable for the first time, but subsequent plays often end up being from mp3s at work or on the bus). For the last eight months, this album has constantly found itself at the back of that queue - the fact I know it like the back of my hand hasn't helped push it to the top.

Huh, well this is actually a perfect example of why it's quite so hard to keep up - half way through that sentence (and the first version of Repeat) the baby woke up so I had to go and settle her. After that was done, it was a safer bet to just go to sleep and get some hours in before she woke again. Somehow yesterday passed too; it's a miracle I ever post anything any more. Update, she woke this time during Methadone Pretty.

There's no point in me actually talking about the songs here - I've done that in the links above at least once. There's also very little left to be said about Generation Terrorists, the incredible, sprawling, ambitious beginning it was. I'm still amazed at how they could go from songs like New Art Riot to Motorcycle Emptiness, Little Baby Nothing and Condemned to Rock 'n' Roll in such a short time. It's always exciting to hear these songs; I hope it always will be.

Format: Double 12", gatefold sleeve, 12" booklet
Tracks: 19
Cost: £20 new
Bought: Fopp, Oxford
When: 04/10/18
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no




Tuesday 7 May 2019

Public Service Broadcasting - The Race For Space


A few years ago I wrote a rave review of Public Service Broadcasting's first album, Inform-Educate-Entertain, a review I pretty much still stand by. I also wrote some roughly positive things about their The War Room EP, a fine enough record that somehow struggles to get five songs out of a fairly substantial topic.

Since then, they have committed themselves to being a band who write albums themed around something, which in itself isn't a bad thing; I'm usually a sucker for a concept album. They make for interesting albums, but I wouldn't say either are as good as the first. And that's not a "it's not as good as their earlier stuff" criticism (I mean it is, but that's not how I mean it) - the great thing about the first one is the fact that each song works as a theme by itself. Every song stood out as interesting on it's own merits. In concept albums, it's easy for songs to just become filler and that certainly happens here.

PSB give us nine songs, although the first is really an intro, so we're left with eight. Sputnik is seven-minutes long, but does surprisingly little with that time. There's a good post-rock song hidden in the background, but the build-up:explosion ratio is all wrong - the ending needs far more time and I want someone to turn the drums the fuck up (there is a note about the so-called "loudness wars", but my criticism here is in the mixing, not mastering). As I said about the first record, a lot of the musicianship and power their live shows have is lost on the album, which is a shame. Gagarin, however, is probably the finest song they've ever written. It helped rocket them (no pun intended) to further fame, and rightly so. Their live shows hang around this song, and I often wish they'd play it sooner to get everyone moving. I suppose the problem is that they have too many slow, thoughtful songs and not enough dance numbers to keep that momentum going. Fire in the Cockpit is quite the comedown and, basically, filler.

The Other Side feels like exactly the sort of song you'd expect to come from this source material, and they just about do it justice. Maybe I'm just the wrong sort of fan, but I want to hear how Mogwai or Explosion in the Sky would handle such material - you could go super bleak in the lull or super celebratory in the end and either would work; PSB reign in both emotions for some reason (although live they hit the celebration with much more force). Go! is the other highlight and another song guaranteed to get people moving. Tomorrow closes the album with another seven minute song that does very little and leaves little impression.

I do like this album, in a way. There are some great live songs here, and it just about works. However, I fear they've now fully committed to only doing themed albums, and that feels like a shame. This album and the success it had feel like the catalyst for this direction, so I hold a bit of a grudge against it for that. Maybe that's unfair? If they change tack and release an album of disparate songs again maybe that grudge will fade. I like that to be the case, but I can't see them doing that right now.

Format: 12", gatefold sleeve, picture sleeve, 12" booklet
Tracks: 9
Cost: £19 new
Bought: Truck Store, Oxford
When: 25/02/15
Colour: Clear
Etching: none
mp3s: Download code






Saturday 4 May 2019

Paul Simon - Graceland


I own a Paul Simon record. Given the 650-or-so records I've written about on here over the last seven years, this might seem like an outlier. On the other hand, there are so many Paul Simon records in existence it's only likely that one would end up in my collection; buy enough records, and one of them will eventually be by Paul Simon.

Throughout my 20's it seemed that a lot of people around me really loved Paul Simon. Near the start of that decade in my life, I bought this copy of Graceland in a charity shop in Canberra for AU$1, which was about 42p at the time. I'd already heard enough good things about it and you can't argue with that price. I think perhaps I was trying to seem a bit more eclectic in my music taste around then (regardless of whether I actually was or not). I definitely remember thinking that owning a Paul Simon record suggested I wasn't this one-dimensional character that only listened to modern rock bands, which it would have been easy to believe (in truth, I thought I was being pretty eclectic by loving an indie band like the Manics as much as I loved post-hardcore and metal, but such differences didn't seem to translate in the other hemisphere, where all of that was basically "rock").

Towards the end of my 20's, the love all my friends had for Paul Simon seemed to peak with him playing all of Graceland in Hyde Park as part of their series of summer shows; it says more that I didn't go with them, but went to see Soundgarden play two nights before in the same venue instead with Hugh and Holly (we also saw The Mars Volta for what would turn out to be the last time too). I'm sure I would have had a great time sitting in the sun with a huge group of friends watching Paul Simon play this album, but I definitely had a better time getting unnecessarily drunk, singing along and seeing Soundgarden live for the first time in my life. (Two years later we'd see Soundgarden play the same venue with Black Sabbath, Faith No More and Motorhead. Soundgarden decided that morning to play Superunknown in whole, and I had an even better time. I count myself very lucky to have seen Soundgarden twice, partly because the first time I was too drunk to really remember much in detail, other than having the time of my life.)

Here I am writing about Paul Simon and I still end up raving about a hard-rock band. Perhaps I am one-dimensional?

Anyway, I like this album. I can honestly say there is nothing else like it in my collection. I know very little about Simon and Garfunkel so can't say much about the important differences and cultural significance of this album. I'm sure countless other people have said it all much better than I ever could a million times anyway. Boy in the Middle is a great song, and the backing vocals on I Know What I Know catch me by surprise every time. The title track stays in your head for days and it's hard not to sing the chorus when thinking about the album. You Can Call Me Al was the one I knew best going into the album, a song that was surely littered over the radio when I was a kid. I once put it on a mixtape for a girl I was trying to impress - it was the only song she mentioned from it, so that was probably a sign it wasn't meant to be (again, trying to look eclectic and not one-dimensional!). It is a huge tune.

Format: 12"
Tracks: 12
Cost: £0.42 second hand
Bought: Charity shop, Canberra
When: 14/10/05
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: none



Thursday 2 May 2019

Sufjan Stevens - Enjoy Your Rabbit


This isn't the album I thought it was. It is really quite bad.

Years ago, when I was getting into Sufjan Stevens, my friend Steve told me that The Avalanche, the album of off-cuts and out-takes from Illinois was almost as good as Illinois itself, and every bit as essential (I'd not agree so strongly, but that's a topic for another day); I made a mental note to check it out. I'd got Illinois, Seven Swans and Michigan (in that order) over the course of 15 months, and thought I had a pretty good idea of what Sufjan Stevens was all about. Then I bought his debut album A Sun Came and hated it - it felt like he'd just thrown the music from countless different cultures at a wall to see what sticks. I haven't played it in years. Then he released The Age of Adz, which did equally little for me, but in totally different ways. I did however really enjoy the All Delighted People EP, so it wasn't all bad around then. The point I'm trying to get to is that I don't care for everything that Sufjan has put out and I was kinda burned out from trying by around 2011; perhaps I'd just got the best albums in my first three goes.

I knew there was another early album, but I made no effort to search it out. I can't remember if I'd heard bad things about it or not, or even what it was like, I just couldn't be bothered to check it out at that point. Fast forward to 2016 and Fopp had just opened in Oxford, filling a city-centre-shaped record shop void that had existed since HMV closed down just after I moved here. I went in there and bought a few things, my loyalty still leaning towards Truck Store down Cowley Road. In the racks of vinyl I saw this album and a few things happened: I remembered there was a Sufjan album I didn't have that Steve had said was really good, and I was pleased that there was a double vinyl that I might enjoy for only £11. Somewhere in my mind, I thought this was The Avalanche, despite it clearly not being that record; that is, I thought the album Steve had said was good was this album. I forgot entirely that there was another early Sufjan album I didn't have. This album wasn't the interesting out-takes from a great album; this was in fact 80 minutes of instrumental, electronic ramblings.

How does anyone start their career like this: album of multi-cultural folk songs, album of electronic wank, excellent album of songs about Michigan? It baffles me. The trio of albums I started with - Michigan, Seven Swans and Illinois have so much in common and something you might consider to be the "Sufjan Stevens sound". It's crazy to think that he bounced around wildly for two albums before settling on exactly that sound for the next three.

I must admit, there is the distinct possibility that this is only the second time I've heard these songs. The album came with a download code, but I don't think I've ever hit play on them. There is literally no point in my day when I want to hear this music. Year of the Boar sounds a bit like the crazy and (intentionally)-uneasy listening moments in Clint Mansell's Requiem For a Dream soundtrack, but at least there they're mostly brief moments that you're rewarded for by the way of the incredible music around it. There is no reward on Enjoy Your Rabbit. Every now and again, there are moments or hints of things that are almost enjoyable, but they're hidden deep and don't stay around for long. OK, The Year of the Dragon is quite good, I'll give it that, but that's one song in 80 minutes - a very long 80 minutes

The sticker on the front says this album might be "Sufjan's magnum opus", but the clue should have been that I've never heard of the institution giving the quote. The back of the record says "programmatic songs for the animals of the Chinese Zodiac", where the first word should have been another clue. This album isn't for me.

Format: Double 12", 12" booklet
Tracks: 14
Cost: £11 new
Bought: Fopp, Oxford
When: 01/08/16
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: Download code




Wednesday 1 May 2019

United Nations - The Next Four Years


I wrote about how I got into United Nations a few years ago when I wrote about their Never Mind the Bombings Here's Your Six Figures 7". A year after seeing them (and being blown away by them) and buying that 7", I bought this LP when I was putting in an order with Temporary Residence for the new Mono (double) album. I always found the idea of United Nations being on Temporary Residence very strange, although I guess they also release Envy's albums so maybe this band isn't a million miles from what they usually put out. Plus, Envy did that split with Thursday, so there's a connection there too.

The album is a compilation of four 7" records and uses that to adapt Black Flag's much-borrowed title for the name; the significance of the "next four years" and the length American political terms is not lost. The strongest songs are probably the first two, from the Serious Business 7" - the title track is perfect and Meanwhile on Main Street uses a vocal effect I remember Thursday using a bit, before cutting straight back into the death metal vocals; the juxtaposition is what makes it so good. The songs from Revolutions at Varying Speeds feel thrashier and rougher the edges. False Flags in particular is pure thrash with no relief. On the songs from United Nations Vs. United Nations they're experimenting more and I like the results - the layered vocals on Stole the Past are excellent and the title track has a moment to breathe, something that doesn't happen often. The closer, Music For Changing Parties, is another highlight.

United Nations are definitely heavier than a lot of music I normally listen to, but when I need something like this (and this is the sort of music you sometimes need) it hits the spot firmly and squarely. It's good to have albums like this.

Format: 12", insert
Tracks: 11
Cost: £20 new
Bought: Temporary Residence website
When: 29/10/14
Colour: Half white, half black
Etching: none
mp3s: Download code