Errors: A Rumour In Africa

Looking forward to the Errors album in a couple of weeks. This is disturbing.

10: Richard Thompson: You? Me? Us?

Between Christmas and New Year I was putting a compilation together for a friend who'd never heard of Richard Thompson. I knew I should include Razor Dance - probably the acoustic version. But looking in iTunes I realised that I only had the live version on Celtschmertz. No problem; it's a good version on the best live album. But where was You? Me? Us? I knew I'd bought it on release - Virgin Megastore, Nottingham - and I saw him tour with it (no t-shirt - when was the last time I saw a Richard Thompson album cover you'd wear on your chest?). But no sign of it in iTunes. Must have bought it on cassette. Double cassette? There's an ancient artifact. And no sign of a dodgy torrent either. Biggest surprise, an album I'd put inside Thommo's top 10 seemed to be deleted. And I've waited a month for this US import to arrive.
Well worth the wait though. It's even better than I remembered. Both electric "Voltage Enhanced" and acoustic "Nude" discs would stand well alone, but as a pair they'reclose to perfection.
It's dark stuff, not the best advert for marriage, and I doubt there's anyone who's persevered with - or escaped from - a long term relationship who won't find something to identify with here.
A couple of tracks appear on both discs, but for a double album, it flies by. And the lyrics - Razor Dance revisits Wall of Death and Shoot out the Lights with even more venom (and my memory served me well - the acoustic version is superior). But with Hide it Away, Put It There Pal and The Ghost of You Walks - on what other album would a song about a man who gathers corpses from battlefields (Sam Jones) seem like light relief?

9: Vampire Weekend: Contra

Yes; it sounds very nice, and it's probably going to be one of the best selling indy albums this year. But it's grating. The ironic title - the anti Sandinista? The too clever lines - where can you buy a cup of Horchata? There's no edge. Christian Lander (of Stuff White People Like) is probably right -

What about the whitest band?
Right now? I have to say Vampire Weekend all the way. They're pushing it to levels unseen. Salon

“As with everything that white people like, the more advanced white people DO NOT like it. But white people’s dislike of Vampire Weekend only comes out of the pure jealousy that emerges when you have to watch already privileged white people succeed with actual talent. The Strokes went through a similar problem. White people like to believe that if you are born East Coast wealthy then you are not allowed to be talented. It is only people who are born into moderate wealth that deserve talent.” Cultural Loafing

7: Lawrence Arabia: Chant Darling 8: Jesca Hoop: Hunting My Dress

I knew this would happen. Buying albums faster than I have time to write about them. And with two new releases last week, time to resort to one line reviews. Lawrence Arabia. He's not called Lawrence. He's from New Zealand. Nice jangly Byrds/Beach Boys guitar pop. Totally wrong to release an album sounding like this in January. Unless you're in New Zealand.
Jesca Hoop - acid folk from Tom Waits' kid's nanny (every reviewer mentions this, so she's not really trying to live it down), now based in the UK. And she is called Jesca. One of those love it/hate it voices like Joanna Newsom. Think this one will grow on me.

6: The Imagined Village: Empire and Love

It took me a while to get the first Imagined Village album - perhaps surprisingly so, given the involvement of Simon Emmerson and Eliza Carthy. I think that I paid too much attention to a sniffy review in Mojo. It's still an immensely enjoyable album, even if a bit sprawling and disjointed. This second set (received from Amazon this morning) is a much tighter affair, less beat driven, and with fewer vocalists; the Imagined Village now sound more like a band, less like a concept.
Martin Carthy's back catalogue features strongly, with Byker Hill and two versions of Scarborough Fair as well as the outstanding My Son John. The latter - like Tam Lyn on the first album - is a radical modernisation of a folk standard, as a song about men wounded by cannon fire in the Napoleonic Wars is updated to reflect the experiences of amputee veterens of Blair's wars. Chilling.

5: A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding in Your Mind

Mojo freebie. Looks quite good - Can, White Noise, Dungen etc. But not been in the mood for it yet. There are way too many Word and Mojo freebies lying unloved and unplayed on my shelves - existing just to cause frustration as I once again rip the magazine removing them from the cover.

3: Arvo Part; In Principio 4: These New Puritans; Hidden

In Principio arrived from Amazon on Friday, Hidden from the Rough Trade Album Club on Saturday (together with the almost obligatory extra Rough Trade exclusive EP - which frequently justify the crass laziness of simply asking RT to send me the best two new releases each month). Part's "Holy Minimalism" and TNPS' "dancehall meets Steve Reich” have a lot in common - big themes, a lot of repeated rhythms and sounds. An obvious shared influence not just from other minimalists, but also from composers like Benjamin Britten.
As Animal Collective (and the less lauded Phantom Band) set the bar ridiculously early last year, I'm sure Hidden will feature in many best of 2010 lists. Of slight concern is that with such a full sound, the vocals are a bit on the wimpy side - I made the comparison with Massive Attack; had TNPS followed their example and used a heavy weight guest vocalist, I think this could have been extraordinary.

2: These New Puritans: We Want War

Medium: Spotify/YouTube
Rough Trade Shops have just tweeted that the new TNPS album is their album of the month for January, so I can look forward to it dropping through my letter box when the Album Club delivery comes out next week. I wasn't overly impressed by their first album, but this single sounds a lot more interesting. More than a nod to Mezzanine-era Massive Attack.

1: Sigh No More; Mumford & Sons

OK; time to bring this place back to life. It was always supposed to be primarily about what I'm listening to. And at the start of whatever we'll call this decade, I've had the foolish idea to comment on the music I purchase (the first contentious comment) in this decade. Might last a week, might last a month... would be nice to think it'll last longer.
OK. First purchase of the decade. Mumford & Sons. Medium: CD. Location: HMV, St Albans.
First became aware of M&S when they were longlisted for BBC's Sound of 2009 a year ago, and I'd already "acquired" (the flip side of that "purchased" word) a lot of this in demo form during the year. They struck me then as being a cut above many of the others on the list - although I'll admit surprise now at quite how many - Florence + the Machine, White Lies, Lady Gaga, The Big Pink (to name just the ones whose albums I purchased) - have made a mark this year, over and above the more widely hyped La Roux and Little Boots (the eventual winner). Looking at that list, I'm all the more surprised that it's taken til now for me to pick up the album. Of course, Winter Winds has been played to death on 6 Music, Radio 2, and even the darker parts of R1 over the last month. And I hope it goes on to be replayed year after year as a classic secular Christmas hit, a la Fairytale of New York. Great bit of marketing - it first hit my radar on a demo some time in the late summer, when it was called "But My Heart Called My Head". I liked it, but it passed me by as a possible Christmas hit. Folk lite? Wimbledon mariachi (wish that was my line, but it was actually Robert Elms in his review of 2009 yesterday)? Whatever; I'm not going to go folk snob on this - it's good.