- Under the Pink
- American Doll Posse
- Night of Hunters
Kate Bush - Never For Ever
FKA twigs - EP1
Patty Griffin - Silver Bell
Incubus - If Not Now, When?
Joe Jackson - This Is It (The A&M Years 1979-1989)
Jars of Clay - Good Monsters
John Mayer - Continuum
Joni Mitchell - The Hissing of Summer Lawns
Joni Mitchell - Hejira
Agnes Obel - Aventine
K T Tunstall - Eye to the Telescope
Megan Washington - There There
Well, hello there... I set up the bare bones of this post at the end of the appointed month, but consciously put it aside on the grounds that there were other things I had to work on more than this blog. Readers should know by now that production of posts is erratic, even though the keeping of records is not.
There is in fact quite a bit to talk about here: new purchases and new listens primarily.
FKA twigs' first EP was not quite a first listen I think, but it was a new purchase and actually it was rather challenging to find a way of parting with money to express my appreciation for the music. For reference, EP1 can be found on Bandcamp, tucked away under the artist name "[artist]" in somewhat typical FKA twigs fashion.
Or you can just download it in a million places, or listen on youtube. The artist herself helpfully provides all the videos, including here. Personally the visuals aren't a major selling point for this EP, but it's an opportunity to listen. Perhaps the easiest single track to try is "Breathe".
But for me, making a purchase was important. Because this is wonderful music, in a genre I'm only occasionally attracted to. I'm so unfamiliar with it that I had to double-check just now that "trip hop" was a suitable term for this particular flavour of electronica. What's so great about it is the delicacy of touch. In fact, having listened to some of FKA twigs' later work, I find some of it less immediately appealing because the beats are heavier. EP1 is 16 minutes of ethereal, erotic music.
Agnes Obel's Aventine was another case of a new purchase after previous listens. I was introduced to Agnes' music at a party earlier in the year, liked what I heard, and made a note to try more later.
And honestly, part of my reaction is that I shouldn't like this music. It is very simple, even simplistic, with the most basic pulsing piano bass lines that would be barely distinguishable from song to song were it not for the fact that some are in duple time and some in triple. Add a few strings and Agnes' dreamy vague lyrics, and that's it.
But by golly, it works. And it works because the mood, the atmosphere of this music is pitched so perfectly. It's a sparse, intimate sound that evokes mists and twilight and fairytales. There's an air of magic about it.
Lastly, I should mention Silver Bell almost by way of apology over the ridiculously long time it took me to listen to it after receiving it as a gift. I wasn't ready to listen. I guess I didn't want to mix up my Patty Griffin albums. I was still coming to grips with Downtown Church and then there was American Kid... and so Silver Bell sat in my collection, much in the same way that it sat in record company vaults for many years.
My understanding is that a lot of Patty Griffin fans did in fact hear a bootleg of the album in the intervening period, but for me, hearing what should have been her 3rd album but ended up being her 8th has been a really interesting experience. It's a curious time capsule of sounds, and even of songs as some of these tracks ended up on other albums. There are things here that make perfect sense as a follow-up to her 2nd album, Flaming Red, and things that I'm not sure sound quite like anything else in her catalogue.
A fuller listening retrospective may be required to place it in context...
