Just Played - On The Record #17
"New record and old records. Every time. I'd never want to limit myself."
The march of progress. The realisation that not everything you love can just stay the same. I remember the disappointment of bands breaking up or wandering off down creative cul-de-sacs as far back as my teenage years, so it’s not always a curmudgeonly symbol of middle age that makes us rail against change. Indeed, it’s perfectly possible to be aware that evolution or even clean slates are required while still desperately clinging to what is about to be swept away. It might even feel a little self-indulgent when such seismic emotional reactions are being prompted over something that was left untouched for, say, fifteen and a half years. But, as I wrote briefly in March, there is a special kind of affection initiated and nurtured by wonderful radio.
Final shows rarely happen in that medium and even less frequently since Danny Baker’s fabled departure from BBC London in 2012. More often than not, hosts find out they’ve finished for good just after coming off air. The national broadcaster tends to be a little more accommodating and so those of a certain standing will get to bid adieu to their audiences. The tone is normally celebratory, with bon homie the name of the game as everything ends on a high.
The mournful claustrophobia of Gideon Coe’s final edition of his three-hour late show on 6 Music was the odd one out. Naturally, one of the most genial self-deprecators in the business was never going to be out of puff from an extended performance on his own trumpet, but he just appeared unutterably sad. A beautifully constructed weary audio shrug, it was the sound of a man who knew how lucky he had been to occupy the same slot for so long while struggling to process the logic of the decision. He made mention of the 2010 fight to keep the station alive when it was threatened with closure, a fight which sought to preserve the soul of 6 Music that was embodied nowhere more potently and purely than by Coe.
His genial mid-morning show was one of several highlights during the early years of the station but it was when he moved to lates that he became a regular part of my listening. I vividly recall using the old BBC listen again feature to play the previous night’s show while setting up at work at some ungodly hour. I was forever writing down the names of songs and artists on post-its to chase up at a later stage. Paintbox Jury was a fine bit of social media content where famous album art was rendered in the rather basic Microsoft program. Duffing was a chance to gently grumble about the state of the world. The Wednesday Wist Wagon was there throughout it all. Gentle, unfussy features that brokered a connection and invited intimate communications were at the heart of Gid’s show. His broadcasts provided a friend with an excellent record collection, a dry wit and a reassuring voice. His presence throughout the pandemic was important to so many and it’s that kind of relationship that only radio can deliver.
On Thursday, he deployed a sensational array of tunes that neatly mixed old and new, true to the ethos that made his programme so beloved. Regular listeners may not have made any purchases following the conclusion, as it was stacked with songs that had defined the run, but if you’re a lapsed parishioner or recently moved into the area then fire it up and brace yourself. He’ll be back in June, sharing Tuesdays and Wednesdays 10-midnight with Marc Riley and flying solo at the same time on Thursdays. It’s not enough, but it’s something. Cheers, guv’nor.
Here are four songs, from many, that I’ll always associate with Gid.
The absolute shining highlight of Gorillaz’s 2020 ‘Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez’ was ‘Désolé’, featuring Fatoumata Diawara as the guest vocalist. A strident, infectious pop smash from the top drawer, it was made even more special by Diawara’s sensational vocal performance. Naturally, I explored her work further as a result and was keenly anticipating her new album, ‘London KO’, ahead of its release last Friday. Damon Albarn, with whom she has worked for over a decade in one form or another, co-produces and returns the vocal favour on opener ‘Nsera’.
The whole album is an immediate thrill, radiating an energy that feels precision-tooled for the sun that’s finally putting in an appearance. ‘Somaw’ is a great nearly-banger that does that wonderful simmering trick where it threatens to explode euphorically numerous times, while the rich piano presence at the start of ‘Blues’ is hypnotic. There is real beauty here too, with the measured textures on ‘Moussoya’ hovering in the soundstage. And then there’s my current favourite, ‘Sete’, which feels like a vintage earworm despite being brand new. I am absolutely besotted with the chord structure in the verse and the deft Wurlitzer touches that propel this majestic track.
Misc-Cogs
Shake your phone when in the Discogs (down with fee increases) app for a random selection from your collection. That’s what I do each week for this bit.
At the tail end of 2012, an album of bewitchingly sparse acoustic music crept into the vinyl racks of the nation’s record shops without fanfare. It represented the gathering together of songs written for nobody but Jessica Pratt herself, which had been pulled together to form a debut that sounded like the sort of thing that reissue label Light In The Attic would have deliriously unearthed from the early Seventies. Pratt’s voice, somewhere between Karen Dalton and Vashti Bunyan, was accompanied by a plucked acoustic guitar and the warm fuzz of the tape to which it was committed. It was thrust into my hands by an enthusiastic employee at my local record shop and I’m eternally grateful.
For the second outing, now signed to Drag City, she recorded all analogue to a four-track and the background hiss was once again part of the sound. The resulting sound the seemed to hover in the room, hard to pinpoint but utterly captivating as if beamed in from another time. The neat little gear changes in songs like ‘Game That I Play’ are delightfully odd and this was an album that was wilfully out of step with pretty much anything else released back in 2015.
A few dabs of colour were added to the original formula, such as the distant clavinet of ‘Moon Dude’, which only adds to its woozy, lilting charm, and a light touch of electric organ on the opener ‘Wrong Hand’, but the focus understandably remains on Pratt’s unique voice. The lyrics tell wry stories about the trials of city living in the twenty-first century, balancing up emotions surrounding love and loss. Their delivery is always magical, Pratt pushing and pulling her performance all over the place. At one point during ‘Greycedes’ it sounds like she’s just gently descending and it’s quite something.
‘Jacquelyn In The Background’ takes this one step further, manipulating the recording by varying the speed of the tape and bending her voice out of shape. The already slightly trippy feel rendered by the incessant hiss is ratcheted up a level and you have to check you’re not hearing things. Indeed, that sense of listening to something ‘other’ is hard to shake. The beneficiary of a beautiful vinyl pressing, this is a late night listen without peer and one made for the analogue realm. Its inherent sonic limitations rather neatly fit the inherent sonic limitations of that beloved format.
First Look
I was a little surprised to learn that the new Jake Shears album, ‘Last Man Dancing’, would be released by Mute. Delight quickly followed when I received the Pallas-pressed vinyl edition. The record is great and you can explore the splendid artwork below. It’s out on June 2nd.
On the same date, the Proper/Universal partnership will restore ‘Watusi’, The Wedding Present’s 1994 release for Island Records, to the racks. Some photos of the GZ pressing can be found below. David Gedge was a little surprised to learn of its existence, however, tweeting “I’ve not heard any test pressings or even seen a proof of the sleeve.”
Something for the ‘read all the way to the end’ folk
Before we begin, I have no idea what is going on with the artwork on the YouTube clips for the songs from the album about which I’m about to enthuse. Not a clue. We’ll cope though, right?
While those that took the time to get to know Martin Carr’s superb 2014 album ‘The Breaks’ embraced it as a melodic triumph, its creator felt somewhat dissatisfied. It took the seismic impact of David Bowie’s passing to trigger a creative response that would become the album ‘New Shapes Of Life’. Abandoning everything he had been working on and starting with the lyrics in order to set the tone, Carr poured out a truth that he had skirted around and attempted to keep in check for some time.
No single genre dominates proceedings, although a combined soundtrack of the life’s work of the Thin White Duke and a mix of Sixties and Seventies soul accompanied the writing of the album. Elements of those clearly had an impact across the eight songs that make up this 2017 album, but there is one notable change for the already initiated. On this occasion, Carr’s trusty guitar was left out in the cold. Instead, he spent much of his time working with samples and seeing what his keyboard was capable of delivering. As a consequence of these various elements, a luxuriant pop sensibility forms the core of the record.
The mid-paced atmospherics of ‘A Mess Of Everything’ swirl around the dislocated purposelessness of being “stoned in the kitchen, awake at the dawn. The universe opens for me; go back to sleep ‘cause there’s nothing to see.” An aching chorus gives way to emphatic, synthetic horns and a stylophone buzz as beauty comes from pain. While the overarching narrative of ‘New Shapes Of Life’ is largely transparent, Carr inspired by Bowie’s self-expression to explore his own thoughts, the resulting music is overwhelmingly warm and inviting.
‘Three Studies Of The Male Back’ weirdly, brilliantly, evokes early nineties Bowie – he’s thorough, is Martin Carr – coming on like a turbo-charged ‘Jump They Say’ with its intro, before ascending to majestic places. The phrase “stoned as a goose” is an early doors highlight, but the lyric as a whole is concerned with a lack of identity and offers one of many references to the stark reality of the mirror across the record. Here is a voice trying to break through it all, but caught between laughter and despair even when watching a sitcom. “I’m not as good as I want to be and I’m better than I think I am,” he sings, as part of an account of pretending to see the world like almost everybody else. It’s a remarkable song and very possibly the best thing he has ever released.
Metaphors for collapse abound and Carr’s honesty around the subsequent impact upon his mental health makes explicit a context that is hardly hidden in these beautiful songs. This music poured out and then it stopped. Although a couple of other pieces were worked on, the frame of mind and circumstances behind ‘New Shapes Of Life’ were unique and these thirty-one minutes exist together as a record of that time, untouched since. All of which makes for a cohesive, immersive listen that heartily repays repeated listens.
As well as the confrontational truth of the mirror, the imagery of ‘the van’ runs across three tracks. At times it seems to represent the endless monotony of touring, having begged for freedom from industry grind during ‘The Main Man’ especially, but at others it seems to be the threat of mortality coming to take him away. Indeed, the penultimate track is actually titled ‘The Van’ and it audibly pulls up at the start of closing piece ‘The Last Song’, possessing a brief lyric that references an ending of sort, the aforementioned mirror dropping to the floor. As regrets pour out, the final line of the album describing this specific act seems to mark the conclusion of a difficult period. The sound of the door slamming that concludes ‘New Shapes Of Life’ appears to confirm this. Hopefully, this symbolic ending doesn’t become too literal, as we’re still waiting on a follow up.