This entry is a little late coming, however I have a whole new batch of CDs arriving in the next week or so I need to clear this out!
Following my Spring music purchases, I collected some more over the summer – some bought, some given.
Jose Gonzalez is a Swedish spanish/folk/indie guitarist singer/songwriter of Argentinian descent. Confused? Don’t be. Just buy Veneer, turn the lights down, and let your ears tell you how much they love you.
I first heard Editors second album, An End Has a Start, at a July 4th party in Brooklyn. My immediate impression was that they had grown a long way, and that this was a really good album. Unfortunately after 2 or 3 listenings the impact was lost and ultimately I was disappointed. Birmingham’s answer to Interpol unfortunately they are not.
Belle & Sebastian’s The Boy With The Arab Strap has been one of the purchases this year that goes in the ‘buying the artists I listened to at college but never got around to buying’ bucket. Along with it (but unpictured in this list) go Echobelly’s On and Sleeper’s Smart. One interesting thing about Belle & Sebastian is that they sound a little like Nick Drake, but 25 years on. Both artists go in the category ‘music to wake up on a cold Sunday morning’ by.
Another British sophomore effort next – Arctic Monkeys Favourite Worst Nightmare. It doesn’t have the punch of the first album but still a worthwhile purchase. I’m looking forward to where these lads go next.
Hybrid are one of my favourite electronic music outfits. They play what I can only describe as orchestral, film soundtrack, trance. Wide Angle is one of their earlier efforts, but probably my favourite, I’d just never got around to getting it on CD. This version, Wider Angle, came with an enjoyable second disc which was a live show from around the time the album was made.
Mint Royale are another electronic group, and pop is.. is a fantastic ‘best of’ that I heard played very loudly while being driven back from Baltimore to Philadelphia from the Virgin Festival. Their music ranges from big beat (the remix of Terrorvision’s Tequila from ’99) through pop (Don’t Falter) to more Ibiza-friendly tracks (The Sexiest Man in Jamaica) As summer CDs go, this was a good’un.
Edan’s Beauty and the Beat came from the same car journey. Hip-hop using 70’s prog rock as the backing? Even a non hip-hop fan like me can’t argue with that.
Onto one of my most anticipated new albums of the year: Interpol’s Our Love to Admire. Unfortunately I felt about it the same way as I did when I saw them live – good, but not the jaw dropping feeling when I first heard their first 2 albums. My hope is that they’ll take this year as a stepping stone towards true greatness.
I enjoyed the Thea Gilmore album I bought in April, so in the summer I followed up with her earlier effort, Avalanche, my dad’s favourite. I don’t know why, but I did actually prefer Harpo’s Ghost. I think it maybe the higher production values actually worked out for her on the later album.
Talking of Dad, he bought me Ryan Adams’ latest (at the time) Easy Tiger for my birthday. I’ve only listened to this a couple of times and it didn’t grab me but I have an earlier Ryan CD coming soon and look forward to a comparison of a bunch of his albums.
Also a gift was Bruce Springsteen’s We shall overcome – The Seeger Sessions. This a very un-Bruce album, being covers of american folk songs. While I appreciated it, I didn’t necessarily enjoy it. I’m looking forward to getting Magic, his latest album of a more usual type.
Yikes, a third British sophomore (I really should have sorted the CDs out a little better) – this time Bloc Party’s A Weekend in the City. Some of the youthful enthusiasm seems lost (there’s no Helicopter on here) but I think it works better as a complete album. They were good live in September too, better than I expected.
I’ve never owned any Manic Street Preachers CDs and their latest record Send Away the Tigers got good reviews. They were valid – this is a great piece of energy-filled brit pop, harkening back to the summer of ’96. More to come on the Manics in my next list.
Closing up this summery collection is the ’07 release from the Chemical Brothers: We Are The Night. This was a big disappointment – there was nothing new here (including a bunch of re-used samples from previous albums), apart from the terrible totally random track The Salmon Dance. I’m a big Chemical’s fan, but this album and the disappointing show at the Hammerstein Ballroom makes me think their days may be over. I hope not.
So that’s an end to this list, but I have 15 new CDs winging their way to me from Amazon, plus a couple of CDs that I got for Christmas so there’ll be another one soon!
Mike Roberts 