Reading Twitter – as I do, too much – it seems as if most people I follow are in some way shocked and amused by the belated discovery that Bob Dylan has got a, yes, funny voice.
One bright morning a couple of weeks ago, I was unpacking CDs in my new house and found Four Tet’s “Pause” as an ideal soundtrack. Eleven years old, it still sounded wonderful: beatific but fleet of foot; contemporary in spite of folktronica, or whatever it was called (the pricelessly daft “Idylltronica” was even better), being a very fleeting fad. I think Kieran Hebden once blamed me for coming up with that folktronica tag; wrongly, I hope.
A good week, in that I wrote a couple of new blogs about the Allah-Las and Dan Deacon albums, finally tracked down a copy of “Meet “Mississippi” Charles Bevel”, and heard the Baird Sisters’ beautiful record (one of them is Meg Baird from Espers) and Four Tet’s “Pink” comp.
On www.allah-las.com, the Los Angeles band of the same name have posted a bunch of unusually excellent mixtapes. The latest, “Reverberation #25”, is pretty typical, taking in the likes of Jim Sullivan and Tim Hardin as well as the group’s backwards-facing contemporaries: White Fence, Sonny & The Sunsets and another bunch out of what always seems to be an unbelievably small and cliquey LA indie scene, The Beachwood
To be honest, I’ve not previously had much time for the music of Dan Deacon; for what struck me, perhaps erroneously, as an odd but not quite combustible mix of process, theory, audience participation, electronica and a certain imperishable indie tweeness.
With the new Uncut out tomorrow, it just occurred to me that I'd forgotten to post this review from the last issue. I did at least put up the full transcript of my email exchange with Ben Chasny, which you can check out by following this link. "Ascent" is on sale now, by the way.
A couple of notable absences here, I guess, since there remains no sign of Neil Young & Crazy Horse’s “Psychedelic Pill” (as we’re currently assuming it’s called), and only the editor has heard Bob Dylan’s “Tempest”, in some kind of fortified panic room at the Sony offices.
Twenty mostly new records for your delectation this week, with particular emphasis on: the Michael Chapman full and free download from Black Dirt Studios’ consistently excellent “Natch” project; Cody ChesnuTT’s plush, upscale return; Corin Tucker tapping back into the punch of earlyish Sleater-Kinney; Jeff Lynne’s weird forensic re-recordings of his greatest hits; that Crazy Horse boot I wrote about yesterday; and Rangda, of course.
Interesting news this morning, as you might have seen here: Poncho Sampedro has claimed that the forthcoming Neil Young & Crazy Horse album will be called “Psychedelic Pill”.