LPTJ Best of 2008: The European Contingent

[Babar]

YES SIR THAT'S ABSURD BUT THE BEST WORD TO DESCRIBE WOULD BE

"AH"!

[Doctor Bob]

So, by, um, popular demand (Hi alex, Hi Trousers and Pat, Hi [I think] Jim in the other thread), here's my 2008 mix.  Some explanation might be required.

The 2008 albums are marked thus*; everything else was bought - but not released - last year.  Not all of the albums on my 2008 top 10 are included either, generally because they didn't fit the mix.  The mix would therefore more properly be called a Best of 2008 purchases mix.  Here it is.  If you want to know more about any of it, just ask.  (Cue deafening silence.)

There's a link at the bottom to a .rar file via mailbigfile (valid until Sunday), and a link to a drop.io page where the individual songs can be heard or downloaded, or a full zip of the mix (tips gleaned from alex).  I'd recommend the whole lot as a mix, though some of the descriptions might make you think twice?  Oh go on, take a chance.  You will you will you will.  Ah go on go on go on.

Re my top pick, I found this:

Perhaps I should be necroing the Flawless Albums thread?  Really, Distances is an early candidate for album of the year.  Usually I hate comparisons of the 'If you like this, try this' variety, but in this case it might be useful if it inspires someone to go out and get this CD.  So, as I said in an e-mail to Johnp earlier today, 'Hugo Largo meets The Jimmy Giuffre 3 meets Talk Talk meets Astral Weeks'.

The Wrong Shoes

(Doctor Bob’s Best Of 2008 Mix)

01 – Nils Økland – Gjennom (Bris)
Fairly uncharacteristic of the album – which is a much more spare and loose-limbed affair, with Norwegian Hardanger fiddle, organ and percussion playing around with folkish melodies –  but I couldn’t resist this as a mix opener.  Like a bracing walk in a gale, followed by a stiff brandy… all before breakfast.

02 – Nancy Elizabeth Cunliffe – The Wheel Turning King (The Wheel Turning King)
I heard this on the radio one night and it stopped me dead in my tracks.  There’s something about a pure, unadorned voice that’s hard to beat, and hers is special.  The rest of the EP is good too, in a more conventionally folky way.

03 – Norma Winstone – Ciant (Distances*)
From my No.1 album of the year – piano, reeds and the unmistakable voice of Norma Winstone – this is one of the more straightforward tracks on that CD.  Satie fans will recognise the tune, Pasolini fans the words.

04 – Rachel Unthank & The Winterset – Blue Bleezing Blind Drunk (The Bairns)
An album of consistently strong contemporary folk, with a few robust tunes like this thrown in for good measure.  Love those north of England accents.

05 – Beat Circus – Dark Eyes (Dreamland*)
Dreamland is the first of a trilogy of albums by Beat Circus, the theme of which is, broadly, the Coney Island of old- freaks and geeks and wheezing old-timey fairground tunes.  I’m a sucker for a good waltz.

06 – Andrew Bird’s Bowl Of Fire – Coney Island Shuffle (Oh! The Grandeur)
I’m a big fan of the non-Bowl of Fire Andrew Bird stuff, but sometimes a good fix of straight ahead party music with frenetic, fiery fiddle is the order of the day.  ‘Candy Shop’ is probably my favourite tume on the album, but some shadows are just too long.

07 – The Real Tuesday Weld – The Decline And Fall Of The Clerkenwell Kid (The London Book Of The Dead*)
The label is called Antique Beat, which is a pretty good description of TRTW’s music in general.  Banjo, piercing clarinet, and a nice smattering of sampled old time beats.

08 – Quintet Clarinettes – Volte Valse (Musique Tetue)
A full CD of clarinets, nothing but clarinets.  10 18 years old it may be, but music like this isn’t bound by fashion or age (except maybe the Medieval age?).  I could have picked any of half a dozen tracks, some even more infectious than this, but if I’m a sucker for a good waltz, I’m even more of a sucker for a good waltz played on a bunch of clarinets.

09 – Steve Beresford – Serpent Python (L’Extraordinaire Jardin De Charles Trenet)
Given that the list of performers includes some of the cream of European free improvisers and jazzers (Han Bennink, Louis Sclavis, Yves Robert, Tony Coe), the sunny Sunday afternoon chanson/musette vibe is a bit of a surprise.  Still, I’m not going to complain if the chops are reined in in favour of good melodies and a cheeky sense of humour.

10 – Volapük – Le Feu Du Tigre (Le Feu Du Tigre)
Mid-‘90s French chamber prog, on cello, reeds and drums.  That mightn’t sound like a description of a dance tune to you (and most of the album isn’t danceable at all), but how then to explain my dancing?

11 – Broken Arm Trio – Spinning Plates (Broken Arm Trio*)
Erik Friedlander’s tribute trio to Oscar Peterson’s Pettiford's (duh!) broken arm.  Pizzicato cello, bass and drums, playing tunes that are jazzier than Block Ice & Propane (see below) but no less catchy for that.

12 – 3MA (Rajery) – Mainte (3MA*)
I’m pretty sure this is a solo Rajery track, and therefore not representative of the trio, but the essence of the album is here nevertheless- bouncy, catchy, pointillistic strings aplenty.

13 – Richard Leo Johnson – Cheek To Cheek / Dance In Heaven (Language)
There’s a story about RLJ that he taught himself guitar from a cassette which had Leo Kottke’s 6 and 12-String Guitar Greenhouses on one side and the Mahavishnu Orchestra’s Inner Mounting Flame on the other- and he thought they were the same band.  Possibly apocryphal- but it’s a neat summary of  his style all the same.  There’s a run of three ridiculously exuberant – bordering on the cheesy – tracks in the middle of this album, of which this is the middle one.  I listen to them on repeat when I’m cleaning the kitchen.

14 – Erik Friedlander – Yakima (Block Ice & Propane)
More genius playing from Mr F, this time solo and more folky than jazzy.  The whole album is tops.

15 – Jolie Holland – Dear Henry (The Living And The Dead*)
Not her best album (though it did make my top 10)- there’s a slight safeness to some of it, and some of the lyrics are simple and a bit sentimental (not in a good way).  This track, however, is of a different order.

16 – Norma Winstone – Here Comes The Flood (Distances*)
That voice again.  If someone said ‘an amazing cover of a Peter Gabriel song by a female jazz singer’, I too would likely run a mile in the other direction.  Gladly, this collared me before I knew its provenance.  If such is a sign of my advancing years, then I look forward to the pipe and slippers with even more relish than heretofore.

17 – Michel Mandel – Choral (Michel Mandel)
The clarinet player from Volapük, in a multi-tracked solo guise.  If you hadn’t already gathered, Yes, I like clarinets.

18 – Iain Ballamy & Stian Carstensen – Saving All My Love For You (The Little Radio)
I’m not sure if this is the cheese course or the dessert course.  An album of accordion and saxophone duets, of which this track is fairly typical- wry, humorous, and not afraid to see behind the cultural baggage.  (Hey, they even do a cover of ‘The Teddy Bears’ Picnic’!)

*** *** ***

LPtJ2008.rar [dead]

drop.io/lptjdr606

Have fun!

[alex]

Thank you, I look forward to giving this a spin!

PS: I keep being too lazy to e-mail, but plane tickets for the previously indicated dates have been bought.

[Doctor Bob]

Great!  (Looks like I don't have to go to the conference either.)

Also, to clarify- the mix fits neatly onto a CD.  71 minutes or thereabouts.

[Trousers and Pat]

Cool! will listen to this on my long bus ride sunday

[kyle]

DB -

We have pretty different tastes, which is why I'm so glad you posted your own top list. I enjoyed most of your list, mostly the jazzier, or technical acoustic stuff. But Erik Friedlander  - Yakima is stupedous. This is the first song on your list that really clicked with me. I adore that you can start hearing his breath on the later part of the recording. I've listened to this quite a few times in the past two days.

Thanks so much!

[Doctor Bob]

No worries!  Glad it hit the spot.  I almost put on a different tune instead of 'Yakima' - 'King Rig', the opener - but I suspect you would have liked it just as much.

I was lucky enough to see him play the Block Ice & Propane show in Dublin last year too- needlesss to say, you should go if he plays anywhere near you.  In the meantime, the CD is well worth picking up- pretty cheap from his website.

T&P- happy busriding.

EDIT: I checked Erik Friedlander's website just now and found this- 'Yakima' live, as performed on, um, FOXBusiness.  I kid you not.  Turns out Errol Morris chose it as one of the tunes for the new 2007 iPhone commercials.

http://www.blockiceandpropane.com/ (Includes a live video of 'King Rig' [check out his hair].)

[alex]

Two more remarks about your 2008 mix, Robert:

1. Amazing job. There are a few things (not many) on here that wouldn't really strike my fancy out-of-context (the context, of course, being your mix), but it holds together really, really well. This means that hitting the "skip" button doesn't seem like a legitimate course of action, and has led me to really appreciate a few of the songs that didn't really click immediately for me. Which leads me to:

09 – Steve Beresford – Serpent Python (L’Extraordinaire Jardin De Charles Trenet)

2. You'll laugh, considering my reaction when you played this to me last week, but this currently features quite prominently on my to-buy list (even, I think, above the albums by Norma Winstone and Richard Leo Johnson, though really, it's a fairly non-hierarchical list). But yeah, this song has really really grown on me, and I get that Dutch line from the first (?) track (something about "het geluid van duizend bijen", the sound of a thousand bees) stuck in my head at random moments, and of course I didn't really hate the last track, and...yes, I think I'll be getting this one before too long.

[Doctor Bob]

1. Thanks very much!  You're saying all the right things.

2. Laugh, moi?  Not really.  I knew you'd see sense eventually.  When the last track has become one of your top 10 tunes of 2009, I'll know my work is complete. ;-)

M. Trenet est un bon professeur,
D'un je ne sais quoi, il est le possesseur.

 

If you're serious about getting the Beresford CD, it's available for a very reasonable $9 from Wayside Music in the US.

(Wayside = Cuneiform Records, which is now Richard Leo Johnson's home label, though I haven't yet heard any of his Cuneiform output.  The RLJ CD you heard in the kitchen - from which the compilation track comes - was Language, released by Blue Note [!].  Sadly now OOP.)

[alex]

Thanks for the pointers; it's been ordered. As has been one of RLJ's releases on Cuneiform. When looking for the latter, I also noticed that Language still appeared in the catalogue, so I added that as well; but I noticed, after placing the order, that the write-up actually does say it is out of print, so we'll see whether that comes through or not.