*takes key handed to him by John*
*unlocks door*
*opens door*
*looks around*
So ... this is what a blog space looks like from the inside. John has seen fit to give me access to this blog, but what to do now?
I think ostensibly the idea was for me to give a reflection on the previous year's music from my perspective, and I'll probably do that after a fashion.
I've been thinking about music a lot recently, and more specifically on how to find and to get into good new music. I may go into this in other posts, or maybe I'll go into it a little now.
Songs don't seem to be sticking in my mind like they used to. Sometimes now, I get hold of an album and have to listen to it three or four times before much of it becomes familiar. Things seem to have been going this way for some time, but it perhaps seems quite striking now. Take for instance Tom Odell - I've just looked back through my music folder to see what music was new in 2014 for me, and there's this Tom Odell folder! I have no idea what it's doing there and what it's all about! *consults with family* Actually I haven't really listened to this before - no-one knows where it's come from. Grr. I'll start again.
February - Fanfarlo - Let's Go Extinct
Right - I like Fanfarlo, a lot. Their first album was the best, the second pretty good, the third, the one in question, is OK. I had high hopes for it with it being a concept album, exploring life from the earliest origins (possibly being delivered to Earth in the form of organic compounds riding on asteroids) to the end of humanity. I have listened to the album about 5 or 6 times, I'd say, but couldn't sing you any of the songs. This one is fairly typical:
March - Elbow - The Take Of And Landing Of Everything
I loved Seldom Seen Kid, and it is one album which goes against what I have said, in that I am pretty familiar with all of it, but I have listened to it a few times, including a couple of times watching the excellent BBC production of the album with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. Anyway, that was that, this is this. I've probably listened to it 3 times and liked it - probably a return to form after a slightly disappointing (to me) build a rocket boys! BUT .. I can't sing you any of the songs from it.
May - Kongos - Lunatic
Now actually, there's a lot to say about this album. It first appeared on Spotify as a new release. I was drawn to it because I'm rather taken with the name (John Kongos did the original 'Step On' back in the 70s, a fact which amazed me as I thought the Happy Monday's version was original). Anyway, this band are the sons of this bloke - they're from South Africa. I downloaded the album from Spotify and loved it pretty much straight away, and it gets an unreserved recommendation from me. Then it disappeared! Just vanished from Spotify ... and Amazon! However, it was available to buy as an import CD, so that's what I did. It has since been released in the UK (September kind of time). One of the tunes is used as backing music on BBC adverts or something like that.
June - Hayley Bonar - Last War
There's a bit of a story here too, but I will be brief ... one arm of my quest to discover new music is to organise a communal CD - a bunch of us pick tracks to share. Well for the CD in question, we had a theme of 'Travel' and I was a bit stumped, but then heard this song playing on 6Music, and it has the word 'travelling' in the lyrics ... job's a good 'un ... as is this track, and the album.
Actually, I'm rambling on more than anyone would care to read, so I'm going to leave it there for now.
*retreats back through door*
*closes door*
*locks door*
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