Blogs

Reading the odd review of BBC’s Electric Proms the other week, and the default concept of chucking in orchestra/choir to create an “event”, I started wondering whether the pairing of Grizzly Bear with the London Symphony Orchestra was such a good idea. After all, the songs on “Veckatimest”, even the ones with strings, are so airy and lacking in bombast. Sometimes, I find myself barely noticing the instrumentation, with the focus so intently on those ornate vocal melodies.

It perhaps says much about John Lennon – the callow 16-year old version, that is – that he’s really only a supporting character in his own biopic. This Lennon has yet to develop into the sardonic, quick-witted Beatle we know from interviews and newsreel footage. He’s not even quite the Lennon we saw in Ian Softley’s Backbeat, despite the events of that film taking place soon after Nowhere Boy finishes.

A quick heads-up on the next free Uncut CD today, which Allan has compiled (with a few suggestions from me) to go with the new issue’s Velvet Underground cover story.

Some stuff to mop up today, beginning with the excellent Glass Rock album on Ecstatic Peace! that’s been cropping up in a few of our playlists recently.

Following our announcement that Mountains would be playing Club Uncut on November 5, we received an email the other day from a duo called Pausal who, to be honest, none of us had ever heard of.

One track today: the debut solo single by Chris Taylor from Grizzly Bear, which comes out on his own new label, Terrible, under the name of Cant. I’ve begun to assemble my albums of the year lists for the mag over the past week, and my personal favourite is looking likely to be “Veckatimest”, sad indie cliché that such a choice may make me.

A while ago, I wrote about Ducktails, one of the projects of Matthew Mondanile from New Jersey. Now, Woodsist is putting out the debut album by a band he plays guitar in, Real Estate, that might be if anything even better.

Finding a place for Bob Dylan's 34th studio album in one of recorded music’s greatest solo catalogues is a perilous business. From its first rattle of sleighbells, “Christmas In The Heart” demands to be compared not with this year’s “Together Through Life”, but, perhaps, with “The Twelve Songs Of Christmas”, by Jim Reeves. “Christmas In The Heart” is a collection of 15 traditional Christmas songs, played in glimmeringly traditional style, pushed into leftfield by a pretty off-the-wall choice of lead vocalist.

“This is great, you don’t have to cheer for that,” deadpans Josh Tillman as a smattering of whistles and applause greet his arrival on stage. “It was pretty lazy of me. But I thank you for your faith.” Tillman, a tall, commendably hirsute figure, has a fine line in flint-dry humour, which he seems more than happy to indulge himself in many times during his 90+ minute set. After a slow, sedentary “Firstborn”, for instance, he stares out into the crowd and drawls, “This is no Vampire Weekend show, for sure.”

This one arrived a couple of days ago and it’s been hard to stop playing ever since. It’s the debut solo album of a French guy previously known as half of the Zombie Zombie duo, who I vaguely recall as being Krautrockish, but not as interesting as they were made out to be. I need to check them out again, I think.