Author: misterstory

Posted in Album of the Month, Music chat

Aromanticism – by Moses Sumney

Posted on by misterstory

Welcome to my 2nd write up of an AOTM. First it was the write-up of Plunge by Fever Ray that I wrote before finding out that it was not released on CD yet. The second is an album that I chose Plunge over initially. The first reason for this is that I am committed, long term lover of The Knife and Fever Ray and wanted to take the opportunity to choose an artist who has meant so much to me for such a long time. The second reason was that David chose a ‘soul’ album for for the November album and I thought this might be a bit ‘samey’ for the following month. However, I have listened to this and Jordan Rakei back to back a few times and in doing so am pretty confident that this is a different enough proposition to propose for the festive edition of AOTM.

Apparently Moses Sumney falls into the sub-wanky-genre of ‘Art-Soul’. Have you heard this term before? I hadn’t and didn’t/don’t really understand it. I was expecting this to be a lot more ‘noodle’ given this art-soul description. While the tracks rarely fit verse / chorus / verse structure, i do feel its relatively conventional and accessible. I have had this in my life for a few months now and it has delivered more over time. I am sue that I think this is absolutely a soul album. But it is a very sparse, austere, often fragile but always perfectly beautiful version of ‘soul’. The album relies heavily on the blues, melancholy and introspection.

This feels like an album of it’s time without borrowing contemporary tropes and production flourishes from it’s recent ‘R&B’ cousins. Again this is perhaps closer to Michael Kiwanuka than it is Jordan Rakei? I think the brothers will like it at first, and those brothers that stick with it will love it.

Posted in Album of the Month, Music chat

Fever Ray – Plunge

Posted on by misterstory

Welcome back Karin. You’ve been missed.

I am very pleased to be able to choose the new Fever Ray album for December AOTM. Merry Xmas Brothers.

My introduction to Fever Ray (aka Karin Dreijer) came before I think I had ever heard anything by The Knife, the band that Karin created with her brother Olof. The Knife were a European Electronic phenomenon in the early ’90s perhaps never having the success or influence they enjoyed in Europe and Internationally.  I worked backwards from my love of Fever Ray’s debut Fever Ray into The Knife back catalogue.

The album, Fever Ray was a (logical!?) musical progression from Silent Shout, The Knife album that preceded it chronologically. Silent Shout was a fairly dramatic, progression from The Knife’s earlier output focusing in on the more intense, dark and moody qualities of the previous albums. Fever Ray picked up this baton and Karin explored much more personal of pregnancy and motherhood as Fever Ray. She shared something we’d never heard or seen (please check out the videos from this album) from her work with her brother. The fact that the release of this album and Stacey and my love of it coincided with Stacey’s pregnancy and our early parenthood made this is a very special album.

If Fever Ray was a progression from Silent Shout then ‘Plunge’, in turns picks up many of the stylistic turns explored on ‘Shaking the Habitual’ the last Knife album. ‘Shaking the Habitual’ was mental. It was a pretty tough listen even for a fan. I do like it very much … but I don’t play it too much! I am sure that when you first listen to ‘Plunge’ you may feel similar emotions but I implore you to dive into it head-first. Create occasions where it’s oppressive, angular and downright scary nature is a plus … not sure what those occasions are really but immerse yourself and its brilliance will reveal itself.

Karin’s voice is urgent, pleading, desperate and reflects the less conventional electronic soundscape that creates each song. But when needed, she turns into a Scandi-Electro-Pop queen sounding cute and friendly. This dark and light is found all over the album. IDK About You is a great piece of urgent Punk Pop but at 150BPM comes across like an assault the first few listens. Again, once you get it, you really get it. ‘This Country’ see’s Karin open, explicit, politically charged and exposed. ‘To The Moon and Back’ harks back to The Knife’s perfect pop moments on the Deep Cuts album. It sounds like the gorgeous radio friendly ‘Heartbeats’ or ‘Pass This On’ until Karin coo’s ‘I want to run my fingers up your pussy’ … oh, she went there. How Karin.

So don’t relax and sit back to listen to this. It won’t work. But do get involved with it’s complexity and range.

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Thinking of a Place – The War on Drugs

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I imagine that Brother David hates The War On Drugs … sorry if I am wrong  … but I freaking love them. This track is beautiful, so beautiful. The guitar break / solo / thing in the 3rd / 4th minute is immaculate. I grew up in the 80’s, I loved Springsteen, my Dad still loved Dylan. The War on Drugs are still finding fertile creative ground in these two artists’ output from this decade (not often considered to be their most influential). And I relish what they’re doing. Cool it may not be. I wasn’t going for cool anyway.

Posted in Album of the Month

Not Even Happiness – Julie Byrne

Posted on by misterstory

Happy (just about) June Brothers. I am going to stick with the tradition of starting my AOTM post by apologising. I have been under-active on our little blog and I am very late to the June AOTM party. The reasons are the same as usual. Life is too hectic and I am poor at managing it. I have taken steps, I am currently working my notice period and changing jobs with the aim of a longer term better quality of life. Another change that I have made this year is that I have not let me love of music suffer at the hands of a hectic life. My escape into music this year has focused mostly on calm and ‘therapeutic’ additions to my new-music folders. ‘Not Even Happiness’ is no exception to this trend.

I would like to present what I consider to be, a thing of beauty. It’s probably filed under ‘Folk’ of some sort but Guy, please don’t let that put you off. For me this is irrelevant as this works on so many levels and for so many environments. I listen to this all the time. It’s been a universal constant in my life since it was released earlier in the year. Back in the cold of Feb and March it felt like a warm winter blanket. In April and May it felt like shoots springing-up through new ground. Now it feels like a cold beer on a sticky evening, chilling out on the decking. There few albums that can pull off this trick.

I won’t go track by track on this one as I could make a strong claim for each one to be my favourite or my ‘stand-out’ track from the album. The instrumentation is simple, sparse basic. Her voice is immaculate and the production of her voice matches this perfection. Her range is impressive but she never feels the need to make a show of it. There are no fancy, show-off vocal embellishments, there is no need. Her finger picking is beautiful. I think its interesting that she chooses to use an electric guitar rather than an acoustic guitar on some tracks. The guitar is paired with a small and varied number of other instruments through out the album, few tracks have more than 2 or 3 instruments and I think I am write to say that there is no percussion on the whole album?

The result is a hauntingly beautiful collection of songs that merge and sway into one another like clothes on a line. This album brings out the best in me. It makes me smile, and loving, and grateful, and thankful. It makes me kiss my wife and ruffle my kids hair. I am a happier person for this album being in my life. I hope that you enjoy it and I hope it makes a similar emotional dent in your life.

Happy listening. As always, if you can give it a run through on headphones you won’t be disappointed.

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Mr. Story’s Albums of 2016

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In no particular order, the albums that I have most enjoyed this year …

Frankie Cosmos – Next Thing

No matter what mood I am in I love listening to this. It’s bizzarely universal for me. If I want to jump about and sing like nobody is in the room then I put it on, if I want to chill out, I put it on. Morning, evening. I think you get the point.

Nicolas Jaar – Sirens

I loved his first, I loved the Darkside album and I love this. I don’t think this is as strong as Darkstar – Psychic but its a hell of a listen.

Olafur Arnalds and Nils Frahm – Trance Frendz

I listen to loads of music that I would never choose for the AOTM. Maybe that is disrespectful to the Brothers. Perhaps I should branch out? These two musicians / composers (whatever) get together to go on hikes and talk about making music. Occasionally they meet in one or the others home cities to make some music. One evening they recorded 6 tracks, live with no overdubs or post fannying about. They created a haunting alum of calm lilting piano music that is then blended into electronic claustrophobia. Those of you who know Paul Ledger will appreciate his comment after he sat in the dark and listened in full on his head phones ‘Its beautiful Joey but you’re still one dark fucker’.

VIDEO LINK CAUSE THE BLOG WONT LET ME PASTE DIRECTLY INTO THE BODY LIKE ABOVE!!! 

Bon Iver – 22, A Million

I didn’t know what to make of this at first … I love it now. He’s pretty bloody consistent isn’t he!

Christine and the Queens – Chaleur Humaine

I don’t care if its not the artists original words, language guests etc. I love love love it. Probably album of the year for me. Thank you David.

Anderson .Paak – Malibu

This has been with me nearly all the year I think. This and Frankie Cosmos. They’ve been consistently albums I’ve turned to.

Agnes Obel – Citizen of Glass

Beautiful

Posted in Album of the Month

JANUARY: Agnes Obel – Citizen of Glass

Posted on by misterstory

I cannot claim any long-standing relationship with Ms. Obel’s music. One evening in late November I switched 6 Music and caught the back-end of a live session. It was the voices I heard that sparked my interest initially. I think I only heard about 90 seconds but after a bit of ‘Ask Jeeves’ (Q:does that still exist?… A:I don’t know, Google it?) I was introduced to Ms. Obel’s music. Citizen of Glass was not out but there were a few tracks on Spotify and I loved each and everyone.

As referenced previously in my wittering, I don’t get as much time to listen to music as I used to / would like. I do listen to music in the evenings but my evenings are not as long as they used to be. Following the daily bedtime battle and the realisation that child-2 will probably be awake for 3 hours in roughly 2.5 hrs we like to keep the evenings calm. I like to read but am useless at reading when listening to some music. I struggle with a lot of music with lyrics when reading. Over the course of a few years this has significantly changed my listening habits. My evening music has become calmer and more instrumental. I listen to a lot of (cringe) ‘Modern Classical’ ‘Neo-Classical’ (puke) and other terms for music with strings that nobody knows what to call. Musicians (composers?) such as Olafur Arnalds, Max Richter, Johann Johannsson and Julian Barwick have become the main-stay of what I actually listen to. However, I’ve not shared any of this on the blog which is stupid really as it is what I listen to and this blog is supposed to be about sharing new music and what we’re currently listening to.

Which brings me to Citizen of Glass by Agnes Obel. Ms. Obel is a Danish singer / songwriter. A bit of time on ‘Ask Jeeves’ suggests numerous genres for her music – classical, folk, pop, experimental among others. The main point for me is that her music is calming and beautiful. There are no beats. There will be no-cool-down-with-the-kids points available for referencing this album, unless of course the kids are listening to music like this which could well be happening given my proximity to ‘cool’.

The album is cinematic and sweeping. It has a rhythm to its sequence and provides a progression through the tracks but also a gentle return to its starting point. By this I mean that listening on repeat is a rewarding experience. There are 10 tracks in all, 8 vocal and 2 instrumentals. The instrumentals (for me) do not feel like filler and have stand out qualities that set them apart as rewarding entities in their own right. The instrumentation is 100% acoustic / orchestral – lost of piano (though this is her album where she consciously steps away from reliance on the piano), strings, harpsichord, harp, spintet, celsta (…. I’m not selling this am I?) and of course her voice. I’ve not checked all the vocal credits but she provides her own backing vocals and harmonies. She even duets with herself on ‘Familiar’ where she provides a ‘male’ counterpoint to her beautiful ‘female’ vocal.

As with many albums the greatest rewards come on repeat listens when you have the ability to concentrate on the music rather than as background music. I hope that you guys get as much from this as I have. I appreciate that this may not be ‘your usual thing’ but hey, it may well be and you’ve just not been blogging about it like me.