Having had some uncharacteristically spare time over the holidays, I've made some changes to the site. Firstly, I've found myself wanting to write more about music in recent times, and to blog about the soundtrack to my travels. That's no bad thing in itself, but I became increasingly aware that the two aspects of the current site didn't sit terribly well together. For that reason I decided to separate out the musical witterings into their own compartment.
Naturally this will still probably end up with me rambling on about music and place - two concepts closely tied up together for me, and something which means I tend to write pretty personally about things I enjoy listening to. It remains to be seen if this will make for sufficiently interesting reading - but it's going to be a curious experiment.
So welcome then to Songs Heard on Fast Trains. I hope the few who read this page will take a look, and that it'll keep this side of things a little tidier too...
As the end of the year approached, with the 'best of 2010' lists all in and being given due consideration, the last thing I expected to happen was for something to arrive out of left-field which should have been up there among the finest releases in the last twelve months. But, the internet is a strange place - and a chance recommendation channelled through a Facebook posting delivered a video of Aidan Knight performing in his living room. A sparse, empty room which echoed with the strange sounds of french horns and guitar trickery while, appearing rather fragile among the serious looking musicians, Aidan Knight strummed deliberately at his acoustic guitar and sang about knitting!
Granted this doesn't sound like the way moments of clarity normally occur, but the video was so compelling that I found myself on Bandcamp parting with money for 'Versicolour' mere minutes after hearing what I later confirmed was really called "Knitting Something Nice For You". I was rewarded with a gem of a record which deserves wider acclaim than it has received so far for sure. I fired a quick email to a Canadian friend too, just in case I was about to make a fool of myself by waxing lyrical over someone who was a household name elsewhere over the Atlantic, but no - aside from noting that Aidan in his press shots appeared to look like "every other downtown twenty-something right now", they too drew a blank.
So what snared me so quickly about 'Versicolour'? The descriptions dotted around the internet certainly don't do it justice when they trot out the all-too-easy 'chamber folk pop' misnomer, along with the assumption that all Canadian music somehow leads back to The Arcade Fire. This record defies easy categorisation, and whilst built initially around the fragile picked guitar and vocal which Knight himself provides, the ensemble of musicians deserves huge credit for crafting an understated masterpiece. Notably, these songs are simple - some of them almost little more than half-expressed ideas at first, which develop into vast sweeps of brass or weirdly off-key country. By "Jasper" - the official closing track of the album - the band are belting out a gospel and western number, wonderful splashes of female vocal and sonorous bass backing the slide-guitar fuelled stomp through a quasi-religious lyric. Along the way we also get the slower burning, but compelling "Fighting Against Your Lungs", where a simple picked guitar and fragile vocal lead deceptively into a brass-drenched Salvation Army bandstand singalong of a tune. If what I'd heard so far had hooked me, this track - personal associations aside - dragged me dangerously deep into this lush, luminous record.
I'm aware I've not lived with this album long enough to write sensibly about it yet, and that this will come across as a breathlessly positive piece - but I wanted to share the unbelievable rush of optimism and delight that hearing this for the first time provided - and the credit for that belongs entirely to Halina and friends at Glasgow PodcART. There is more to discover here - not least a more recent EP. But I predict pretty soon Aidan's name will be heard in lots of places where quality, workmanship and fragile beauty are valued.
Aidan Knight - Jasper
I agonised over the wisdom of posting a list like this. The drawbacks were of course very apparent - I open myself to accusations of whimsy or elitism with some of my choices, or I miss out something I really liked and realise too late. However, since 2010 is the year I've purchased more music than for any in the preceding decade, it feels important to mark the occasion. I've tried to list things I've listened to most - because that seems like a fair test of how much impact they've made. This does of course miss the acts which have released less music this year but have been very much on my list - honourable mentions to White Heath and French Wives for instance. Also, there are many others just outside the top twenty who I'd love to have included - but there have to be some self-imposed rules or these things would never work.
I make absolutely no apology that this list is largely of Scottish musicians. I've spend an inordinate amount of the last year north of the border on a variety of trips and missions, and this has left it's mark. Also, there is a genuinely supportive network of musicians in Scotland who, as one starts to explore, suggest and link to countless others. That this sprawling and sometimes incestuous network functions on a genuinely human scale is amazing and inspiring to me. Before I knew it, my old preferences for things Scottish had reawakened with a whole host of new talent. There are of course some remarkable artists from elsewhere around the world on the list. There is also an equally impressive network of Scottish blogs which serve this diverse scene - including Peenko, Aye Tunes and the truly inspiring Glasgow PodcART - all of which nurture and promote talent with fervour and humour.
I also make no apology about the downbeat, often acoustic bent of this selection. It's the kind of year it's been - and while there have been some fantastic released by louder or more electronic acts, they've just not achieved the place in my heart that these have.
So, here then are the things which have inspired, delighted and consoled me during the year. Wherever possible, I've tried to link them to a place where you can hear the music almost straight away and completely for free. This has sometimes meant using bands' Myspace pages - which are now rendered pretty horrible by the new platform, but at least allow access to the music. I hope there's something in here which others find equally entrancing...
- Meursault – All Creatures Will Make Merry
- Admiral Fallow – Boots Met My Face
- Burnt Island – Music and Maths EP
- Kid Canaveral – Shouting at Wildlife
- Randolph’s Leap – Battleships and Kettle Chips EP
- Timber Timbre – Timber Timbre
- eagleowl – Into the Fold EP
- Yusuf Azak – Turn On The Long Wire
- Thirty Pounds of Bone – Method
- The Scottish Enlightenment – St. Thomas
- Esperi – Made For Life/Snowman
- And So I Watch You From Afar – The Letters EP
- The Unwinding Hours – The Unwinding Hours
- I Build Collapsible Mountains – A Month of Lost Memories
- Endor – Endor
- The Last Battle – Heart of the Land, Soul of the Sea
- Maple Leaves – Golden Ether EP
- The Savings and Loan – Today I Need Light
- Thous and Thees – Last Recordings EP
- Trevor Moss & Hannah-Lou - Trevor Moss & Hannah-Lou
Belle and Sebastian - Colston Hall, Bristol
Posted in SHOFT on Thursday 16th December 2010 at 11:12pm
It was something like six years between my first two Belle and Sebastian shows, and on the cold bus ride to Bristol tonight I calculated it was something like four years since I'd last seen them. Across the numerous performances in between my first desperate dash to London and last time, at the same venue as this evening, they've variously sparkled and plain sucked. Tonight, quite a bit felt like it had changed - I was struggling up to Bristol from the new office in Clevedon for starters, and a cold and strange journey it was too - not really knowing where I was, which was an unusual experience for me. The bonus was to be dropped directly outside the Colston Hall - it's new spacious entrance building full of city types enjoying jazz and cocktails. Once inside, despite a bit of a refit it was essentially the same municipal concert hall it had always been. Found a seat in the corner and settled in for the support act Daniel Kitson and Gavin Osborn. I'd been prepared to be unhappy with this - a story teller and a singer performing together sounded a little bit too staged and corny for starters. What I wasn't prepared for was the razor sharp delivery and witty, clever prose which Kitson provided. Gavin Osborn's songs worked too - not just illustrating or adding colour to the story, but moving on the narrative. This allowed a fairly complex story to be told with genuine pace and humour. Kitson looked like Allen Ginsberg but oddly sounded like Dave Gorman, whilst Obsorn's gently folky voice and guitar were ideally suited to the format. The audience who bothered to wander in were in parts, utterly delighted by the whole performance, as was I. A great choice of support act.
So, with the lights up, and disappointingly the tradition of girls selling ice cream now dispensed with here, I surveyed the audience. They were a mixed bunch - a fair number older folks like myself, who'd probably grown up with the band and were genuinely eager to see their old heroes once again. Mixed in were a larger group of younger people - far too cool for their own good, they kept their scarves on indoors and posed, hands on angled hips whilst chatting and guffawing about tuition fees and tweeting casually on their 'phones. I was of course tapping away on mine too - answering work emails - I have clearly aged a lot in the last four years.
So, Belle and Sebastian took to the stage in their usual ramshackle way. A full string section again added to the sound, and seemed to bode well for the evening - except that they were largely inaudible amongst the flabby sound. Somewhere in the first few songs, a shift in the balance seemed to have occurred... Always by far the most conciously 'cool' member of the band, Stevie Jackson seemed to be stepping forward to lead the proceedings. This left a slightly sick and rather subdued Stuart to verbally spar with him and not managing much in the way of engagement with the audience. Luckily, the recent record didn't get too much of an airing, with only the strongest few songs making an appearance - "I Didn't See It Coming" and "I Want The World To Stop" retaining their glamour, whilst "Write About Love" sunk without trace - all too easy and not at all convincing. This betrayed the strange set of song choices in the set. With a now extensive back catalogue to plunder, a good few oddities were unearthed to varying effect. Luckily this archaeological dig also provided some highlights including "Dog on Wheels" and "The Stars of Track and Field".
As the long and rather slow set dragged into it's final stages, I found myself getting frustrated with the band. This group of people have inspired such genuine admiration in me and many thousands of others over the years, but seemed to coasting. It was of course, the end of a very long tour. It was also clear that many of them weren't feeling great. Only Stevie, ever professional but strangely turning into Bob Dylan circa 1966 with his wild curly hair, managed to retain any of the geeky and shy star quality which this bunch usually exude. After a disappointly rushed and subdued "If You Find Yourself Caught In Love" - which had been so fantastic here last time - the band managed a pretty decent take on "Sleep The Clock Around" before disappearing from the stage. As they shuffled wearily back to kick off an encore with "Judy and The Dream of Horses" I shuffled away too, to catch the train home earlier than I needed to. It's hard to tell if I've grown out of Belle and Sebastian or whether, tonight at least, they've just stopped caring themselves. This was patently the least impressive they've been since the achingly shy and quiet Shepherd's Bush Empire gig. I felt weary and old heading home, and rather like I'd had a silly argument about nothing with an old friend. Lets hope we can make up sometime soon?
Lost::MikeGTN
I've had a home on the web for more years than I care to remember, and a few kind souls persuade me it's worth persisting with keeping it updated. This current incarnation of the site is centred around the blog posts which began back in 1999 as 'the daylog' and continued through my travels and tribulations during the following years.
I don't get out and about nearly as much these days, but I do try to record significant events and trips for posterity. You may also have arrived here by following the trail to my former music blog Songs Heard On Fast Trains. That content is preserved here too.
