I suppose this is a bit rich coming from someone who gets most of their music for free, but a gentle reminder that tomorrow seems to be Record Store Day across Britain and the US, at the very least.
Some pretty big names in the mix this week, including a small rush of survivors from the American ‘80s underground: shame the Lemonheads’ covers album hasn’t arrived in time to complete the set.
There was allegedly a leak of the new Dirty Projectors album a couple of days ago, which means that yet again my dithering has robbed me of blogging exclusivity. The thing is, as I’ve mentioned a few times over the past month, I’ve been finding “Bitte Orca”, like its predecessors, somewhat intriguing and uncrackable. Today, I think I’m getting closer to understanding it.
When I was writing about the Lindstrom & Prins Thomas album a while back, I mentioned there was more Scandinavian electronic goodness forthcoming from The Field. “Yesterday And Today” is Axel Willner’s second album in this guise and, risking one of those winsome climatic references, it works great walking to work on a bright spring morning like this one.
There’s a good line from James Petralli in the biog which accompanies “Fits”, the new White Denim album. “We set the tempos high,” he says, “and set off.”
Pretty weird mix this week, as I look down this list, not all of it fantastic. If I can break the usual protocols here, though, the Johnny Cash remix is really awful, and I speak as a Snoop Dogg fan. Given that “I Walk The Line” looked like the most interesting thing on the Cash remix album that turned up the other day, I suspect we might have found the worst record of 2009 already – though I must confess I don’t have the moral courage to check and make sure.
A vague plan to write about the new White Denim album this morning, comprehensively derailed when I discovered this amazing footage on Youtube. It features the elusive Jandek playing what is allegedly his first ever live show in his hometown of Houston.
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Maruga Booker turned up at Woodstock in 1970 as Tim Hardin’s bongo player. But at some point during the weekend, he wandered into a temporary ashram and came out converted by the Swami Satchidananda.
My favourite single track of 2009 thus far, as I mentioned in last week’s Boredoms “Super Roots 10” blog, is the Lindstrøm mix of that band’s “Ant 10”. Good news, then, that the Lindstrøm & Prins Thomas’ new album turned up a few days later.
Perhaps as a response to the American psych-folk scene, over the past few years there’ve been a handful of British bands who’ve sought to channel the late-‘60s/early-‘70s folk-rock scene. Most of them, unfortunately, have been more or less worthy but misfiring. Trembling Bells, though, are a big exception.