LINER NOTES: AS DOES THE SUN [2024]

 

        1.   She Knows – The Goon Sax
        2.   Slab – Wombo
        3.   David’s Dead – A. Savage
        4.   Canines – Lewsberg
        5.   Uncle Roy Orbison – Vehicle
        6.   Doubt – Stereolab
        7.   The Games You Play – Broadcast
        8.   You Look Certain (I’m Not So Sure) – Mount Kimbie
        9.   Lember Kuring – Yanti Bersaudara
      10.   Engine Number 9 – Wilson Pickett
      11.   I Want to Thank You – Otis Redding
      12.   Happy Survival – Ifeanyi Eddie Okwedy & His Maymores Dance Band
      13.   The Rain Falls Down – The Rising Storm
      14.   Tudo Comeca De Novo – Nelson Angelo E Joyce
      15.   This is the Way – The Chills
      16.   The Fix – Jon McKiel
      17.   Sin – Rick White and The Sadies
      18.   As Does the Sun – Look Blue Go Purple
      19.   Dart – Joel Gion
      20.   Dust – Parquet Courts
      21.   Memory Man – The Lovely Eggs
      22.   IDGAF – Sam Evian
      23.   Tell Me Myths – SHOLTO (featuring Elle Musa)
      24.   Look at You Now (You’re Crying) – Comet Gain
      25.   Palliative Care – Jeff Clarke
 
 
'Goon sack' is Australian slang for bag-in-box wine – specifically the bladder itself contained within the box that holds the liquid. The word 'sack' is self-explanatory, but 'goon' is an abbreviation of the word 'flagon', a vessel often associated with the storage of booze. The advantages of such a delivery system is its enhanced capacity, light weight, the reduced price, and a slower rate of oxidation. The disadvantage is the quality of the wine, or lack of.

The Goon Sax are from Brisbane, Australia. ‘Sax' is clearly a reference to ‘saxophone’, so what we’ve got going on here is a play on words. Such punnery is usually a bad sign, but The Goon Sax are actually rather good. Or were. They split up in 2022 after releasing three albums over a six year period, which isn't a bad innings by any means.

It should perhaps be said that lead-vocalist Louis Forster is the son of Robert Forster, co-founder of The Go-Betweens. He doesn't sing on 'She Knows', James Harrison does, whose father I know nothing about. I heard this song playing in the St Margarets Tavern at the tail end of 2023, and a year on I'm not remotely bored of it.
 
Made up of 25 tunes, this year's compilation comes in at around 1 hour and 20 minutes. Compare this to the playlist I compiled in 2023, which was 24 songs long and lasted 1 hour 43 minutes. Or the one in 2021 that amounted to just 23 songs but went on for 1 hour and 39 minutes. This is to say that many of the tracks on this year’s anthology are on the short side, which was not premeditated.

At 1 minute 48 seconds, 'Slab' by Wombo is a case in point. Spotify recommended it in March, along with a load of other stuff I’ve already added to previous playlists. Wombo are another three-piece, but from Louisville, Kentucky. Lead singer and bassist Sydney Chadwick reckons she’s a concrete slab and ‘don't align with nothing’. ‘Slab’ is taken from the EP of the same name, released in 2023.

A. (for Andrew) Savage is co-frontman of the indie-rock band Parquet Courts. He’s also recorded two solo albums: 2017’s Thawing Dawn and 2023’s Several Songs About Fire. Driving somewhere or other, Gideon Coe played ‘David's Dead’ on the radio (a BBC 6 session version, dated 7 Feb 2024) off of the latter (subsequently purchased on sale from Eel Pie Records in Twickenham). Savage has a wonderful way with words, and ‘David’s Dead’ is no exception: ‘... and I remember what you wore: a turquoise dress and tequila grin, a mirthful mess when you walked in the door.’

Lewsberg are from Rotterdam. I was introduced to them during the same Spotify session that introduced me to Wombo. My musical impression of Rotterdam is derived from a squat party I went to in the year 2000 where the order of the day was drum and bass and hard techno. Lewsberg are not that. Their sound, if their 2023 album Out and About is anything to go by, revolves around a Parquet Courts/Velvet Underground type of groove with words half-spoken over the top. ‘Canines’ even adds a violin.

Another Spotify suggestion, but this one came later, in July. Vehicle are from Leeds, and as much as I approve of the name it makes finding information on them rather difficult (try running an internet search for Vehicle band Leeds and see what you come up with). They have an Instagram account but that doesn’t give much away, other than that they’re snappy dressers. ‘Uncle Roy Orbison’ is the group’s second single and sounds a bit like The Stranglers with Steve Harley standing in on vocals.

In my liner notes for 2002’s Come on Let’s Go I claim that I own most of Stereolab’s albums. Although this is strictly true there’s an awful lot of their material I don’t have, if only because of the sheer weight of it. I keep meaning to buy the first Switched On compilation to add to volumes one and two (there are five in total) but have yet to do so. In the meantime I’ve downloaded ‘Doubt’ off of Stunning Debut Album, which is neither an album nor a debut; it's their second single.

'The Games You Play' by Broadcast is taken from Spell Blanket – Collected Demos 2006–2009, the third and penultimate posthumous release since Trish Keenan's untimely death in 2011 (not counting reissues or repackaged compilations). It is in fact a re-working of the instrumental track ‘DDL’, a kind of noise experiment that appeared on a ‘various artists’ compilation entitled All Tomorrow's Parties 1.0 and was later included on The Future Crayon, a collection of rarities and B-sides that Broadcast put together in 2006. Thereafter Trish Keenan added her vocal melody, possibly with the intention of including it on the album Broadcast were working on when she died. Given in its nature, there’s a lo-fidelity, unfinished quality to it that is quite pleasing. The vocal, though, is crystal clear.

‘You Look Certain (I’m Not So Sure)’ by Mount Kimbie, featuring Andrea Balency-Béarn, is another hangover from 2023, again heard in the St Margarets Tavern. [As with the London Apprentice in Isleworth, the Tavern is owned by Greene King, and they often play the same tunes.] Mount Kimbie are part of the post-dubstep scene, such as there is one, and have in the past collaborated with James Blake. I wouldn’t know if ‘You Look Certain’ is typical of this genre, but I suspect not. In some ways, taking into consideration Balency-Béarn’s vocal, it doesn't sound too dissimilar to what you could imagine Broadcast doing if they were still around. It's no coincidence that I’ve put these bands next to each other, or that Stereolab precede them.

I don’t watch much television. I have no idea what precipitated the decline, but it's been like this for a while. After travelling to Naples in March and Rome in April, my partner persuaded me to watch the Netflix mini-series Ripley, which is set mainly in Italy. I was captivated, by the performances, the dialogue, Steven Zaillian's direction, Robert Elswit’s black and white cinematography, the sparing use of music, the clothes, the stone pines, everything.

We would all do well to dress more like Dickie Greenleaf, Marge Sherwood and Tom Ripley. Instead, modern society has variously embraced: tattoos, fake tans, fake nails, fake eyelashes, multiple piercings, augmented lips, re-formatted eyebrows, a panoply of beards and moustaches, the occasional mullet, more tattoos, sportswear, trainers you can’t train in, ‘hoodies’, socks with sliders, shoes without socks, items of clothing designed to be worn indoors worn outdoors, an overly loose fit, an overly tight fit. Generally speaking, there is nothing you can put your finger on, no defining look. The unifying quality is that there is no unifying quality.

Ripley doesn’t impose on the viewer the era in which it is set – the early 1960s. To do so would be to invite pastiche and distract from the characterisation and the narrative. It would be equally diverting to disregard the period altogether, so we get a subtler version of it, and probably a more authentic one. It’s not just about what the characters wear but the whole mise-en-scene. The visual detail isn't beholden to any particular time or place, and the cinematic compositions might rather invite painterly comparisons to Caravaggio, Edward Hopper or de Chirico (as well as film noir).

But the clothes! There’s not much to them really, but if you want a description then you might reach for the adage ‘less is more’.

'Ripley'

In January I was summoned to Leeds for a company meeting and a sort of belated Christmas do, which meant staying the night in a hotel. The following day I had a couple of hours spare before my train back to London, and so took the opportunity to walk around town, Kirkgate Market, the Victoria Quarter and the Corn Exchange. I noticed how many more older buildings there were in Leeds compared to southern cities, in a variety of architectural styles, and that it was all the better for it.

The Belgrave Music Hall & Canteen is a bar on the northern edge of Leeds City Centre, specialising in pizza and live music. On my visit there the DJ played some interesting records, and one in particular caught my attention: ‘Lember Kuring’ by Yanti Bersaudara, an Indonesian group comprised of three sisters. The self-titled album it came from was released in 1971, re-issued in 2023, and is described on Discogs as belonging to a genre called Indo-Pop. To my ears it sounded soulful and slightly psychedelic.

I found ‘Engine Number 9’ by Wilson Pickett while trying to identify the samples used in ‘Fade to Black’ by LA Star, a rap tune dating back to 1990, and an old favourite of mine. She borrows two elements: the percussion that kicks in towards the end of ‘(Get Me Back On Time) Engine Number 9 (Part II)’ off of Wilson Pickett in Philadelphia, and the organ that features in both parts I and II as well as ‘Engine Number 9’, which is merely a shortened version of the same recording released as a single. The extended mix is better, but I felt the abridged iteration was more suited to this compilation.

The soul ballad ‘That's How Strong My Love Is’, written by Roosevelt Jamison, is covered by the Rolling Stones on their album Out of Our Heads. That same year (1965) it also turned up on The Great Otis Redding Sings Soul Ballads, a record that I do not possess. Jagger’s performance on ‘That's How Strong My Love Is’ is a strong one, but because I already know it, it’s not allowed on this playlist. Nor is Redding’s rendition; it also crops up on The Best Of Otis Redding (1972, ATCO Records), a record that I do possess. I’d somehow overlooked this fact, but it didn’t matter. On listening to The Great Otis Redding Sings Soul Ballads, it was another track, ‘I Want to Thank You’, that grabbed me. Highlights include Steve Cropper's guitar and the way Redding enunciates the line 'all of your sweet loving charm' at the end of the second and third verses.

Not for the first time, I tried tracking down the samples used by Billy Woods on the 2022 track 'Haarlem' (still no joy). In the process I somehow ended up listening to 'Happy Survival' by Childish Gambino, featuring Khruangbin, from his latest album Bando Stone and the New World. The tune is credited to both Khruangbin and a Nigerian musician by the name of Eddie Okwedy, who produced the song in its original form in the early 1970s. It is entirely appropriate that I found the song this way, given that the Billy Woods record from whence 'Haarlem’ comes from – Aethiopes – deals with slavery and colonialism, while 'Happy Survival' concerns the effects of the Nigerian Civil War, which was indirectly caused by the very same thing. 'Happy Survival' is an example of (Igbo) Highlife, a genre that originated in Ghana around the turn of the 20th century, combining traditional melodic and rhythmic structures with western instrumentation.

The Rising Storm was a garage rock band from Andover, Massachusetts, known for their 1967 album, Calm Before. A lot of bands of this ilk are recognised for individual songs rather than whole albums, which makes them something of an anomaly. An original pressing of Calm Before can fetch a four-figure sum, and it's hard to understand why. It is certainly a good record, but is it any better than those of their contemporaries: by The Sonics, The Seeds or The Left Banke? Is it just down to scarcity? In any case, it’s worth a listen, even if over half the tunes are covers. Written by The Rising Storm’s guitarist, Rich Weinberg, ‘The Rain Falls Down’ isn’t one of them.

Rome

In February, to support the release of his new book, In the Jingle Jangle Jungle: Keeping Time with the Brian Jonestown Massacre, online magazine The Quietus invited Joel Gion to detail the thirteen records that helped shape his life – his ‘baker’s dozen’. Some artists seem to look at this as an opportunity to impress the reader with their musical literacy, reeling off names you’ve never heard of, which is not to say that their choices are disingenuous. They are, after all, in the music business and we should expect them to know their stuff. But no such grandstanding where Joel Gion’s concerned, he shoots straight from the hip. Beggars Banquet by the Rolling Stones, Revolver by The Beatles, What’s Going On by Marvin Gaye, Scott 3 by Scott Walker. These are not wilfully obscure selections but works that are integral to the canon. He even throws in A Storm in Heaven by (The) Verve, describing Nick McCabe’s guitar as sounding like a ‘giant wave’.

There’s still room for paths less travelled, and I followed him down a few of them. The most intriguing was Nelson Angelo E Joyce by Nelson Angelo and Joyce Moreno, a one-off collaboration between two Brazilian singer-songwriters, released in 1972. It’s got a sort of folky bossa nova vibe to it, with another hint of psychedelia. The track you find here – ‘Tudo Comeca De Novo’ – is reminiscent of ‘Friends’ by Led Zeppelin, with added percussion, a softer vocal, and bells.

In 2023 I discovered the Dunedin Sound. It was The Clean that did it, and Spotify soon started suggesting other bands that were part of the same scene, like The Chills, whom I had heard of, and Look Blue Go Purple, whom I hadn’t. The Chills are probably the best known of all the Dunedin bands, as became evident from the press coverage that followed when founding member and principle songwriter Martin Phillipps died in the middle of the year. The way defined by him in ‘This is the Way’ is to, ‘Fill your head with alcohol, comic books and drugs.’ When I was listening to this in late spring I assumed he was pointing a negative finger at people who withdraw into themselves. Turns out that although Phillipps had been living clean for quite some while, it hadn’t always been that way, which was a contributing factor towards his relatively premature death. The lyrics, then, may well have been directed towards himself, and bring with them a sense of tragedy and loss.

I found out about Canadian singer-songwriter Jon McKiel after indulging the Spotify algorithm, prompted by the realisation that my compilation was short on minutes. Despite having never self-imposed the stipulation, I also wanted more tunes that were current, just because I think it’s a good way to anchor my playlists in time. ‘The Fix’, from McKiel’s latest album Hex, helps on both counts. ‘Sin’ by Rick White and the Sadies was discovered earlier, in June, but serves the same purpose. They’re also Canadian but have more of an alternative-country thing going on.

Look Blue Go Purple were one of the Dunedin scene’s later bands, and as a result less well known. This might also be attributable to the fact that they were an all-female group and thus not taken as seriously as some of their peers – or didn’t ask to be, or didn’t want to. It certainly wasn’t down to the music, which is great. They only released three EPs, all on Flying Nun Records – the Dunedin Sound’s primary means of communication – repackaged in 1991 as Compilation, and again in 2017 as Still Bewitched. ‘As Does the Sun’ is fairly typical of Look Blue Go Purple’s work, but maybe not so much of the Dunedin Sound. What sets it and them apart is Norma O'Malley’s flute, as if Jefferson Airplane had been reincarnated as a Sarah Records’ band.

Talking of which, after I finished reading These Things Happen: The Sarah Records Story by Jane Dufus – quite a hefty tome – I finally made a start on In the Jingle Jangle Jungle: Keeping Time with the Brian Jonestown Massacre. Aside from the amusing anecdotes, it describes in some style what it’s like to be young and skint but somehow having the time of your life, of not being in a position to have separate summer and winter wardrobes and how a particular item of vintage clothing can mean so much. Such was my appreciation, I thought I may as well check out some of Joel Gion’s own music. I went for Apple Bonkers, and it’s surprisingly good. ‘Dart’ is its best track, which is comparable to something off of Their Satanic Majesties Request, replete with Mellotron.

Readers of my liner notes might recall how the 2020 Tour de France highlights on ITV4 contributed to that year's compilation: specifically, ‘Broadway Jungle’ by The Maytals, which played over the end credits for Stage 13. (They might also recall the phrase 'Readers of my liner notes might recall' which I used in the corresponding liner notes: ‘Readers of my liner notes might recall that The Poets kicked off my 2005 anthology with “That’s the Way It’s Got to Be”.’) Whoever makes these thematic connections normally does a good job, as they did on this year’s Stage 9. Stage 9 incorporated no less than fourteen separate gravelled sections, much to the consternation of the cyclists challenging for the general classification. Chaos reigned. Entering one of the steeper, narrower sectors, many of the riders lost their momentum on the chalky surface and could be seen frantically pushing their bikes up hill. Where traction was sustained, dust kicked up all around them. Hence ‘Dust’ by the instantly recognisable Parquet Courts.

Musical artistes I have seen live two times or more: Stereolab, Tindersticks, Pavement, Pulp, Corduroy, Delta, Dylan Rabbit, The Fall, The Research, Field Music, Weird War, Chain & the Gang, Escape-ism, Comet Gain, Herman Dune, Holiday Ghosts, Sleaford Mods, Public Enemy, The Clientele. And, as of October 2024, The Lovely Eggs.

My partner and I went to see The Lovely Eggs at The Garage in July 2021, an event that was scheduled for April 2020 but pushed back, numerous times, because of Covid. That had been a lot of fun, so this year we decided to go and see them again. It is that sense of ‘fun’ which sometimes gets in the way of the music. What with the wacky online presence (see EGGS TV), amusing song titles and the duo’s good nature, you can sometimes forget just how good The Lovely Eggs really are.

Less than a week later I was off to Albarracin in Spain with my bouldering pals. We flew into Valencia on the morning of the 30th October, the day after a catastrophic flood that resulted in over 230 dead. We hadn’t known the extent of it when we left England, or even immediately after we landed. The devastation was revealed to us once we’d picked up our hired van and driven away from the airport and towards the centre of Valencia itself (which was pretty much unaffected). From there we began our steady ascent through the mountains towards Alabarracin. The Florist was in control of both the vehicle and the music, as he had been when he’d driven us to Fontainebleau in 2022. It didn't begin well, and after a few of us complained he put on some randomised playlist more in keeping with atmosphere engendered by our surroundings: long roads, rolling hills, wide open plains, that sort of thing. This was the point at which I became aware of Sam Evian.

‘Tell Me Myths’ by SHOLTO (all caps artist’s own) was something Huey Morgan played on the radio. Adding it to my playlist was impulsive, but I was still short on minutes and it’s another contemporary release. Hard to describe precisely what it is, but SHOLTO’s Bandcamp page alludes to a fondness for ‘jazz, soul, and ‘60s and ‘70s soundtracks’. Gilles Peterson would probably play it – probably has played it.

Bilbao

Back in February I was seconded to the London Metropolitan Archives in Clerkenwell for what ended up being about a month. Despite the hour long commute, I quite enjoyed it. After work on Fridays I would stop off for a quick pint in the Betsey Trotwood, a lovely pub and respected music venue. It was here that I returned on my way to see Comet Gain at The Lexington in July. Stephen McRobbie of The Pastels had the same idea, although he was with friends whereas I was alone, having found nobody to accompany me.

The week before I had spoken briefly with Comet Gain's Rachel Evans at The Garage (to see The Gories), who warned me that her band was under-rehearsed. (I think she vaguely recognised me from when I'd accosted her at the Make Up gig at The Dome in 2023). She needn't have worried. It was a great show and triggered a detailed investigation into Comet Gain's back catalogue, filling in the gaps. A good place to start, for anyone with similar inclinations, is Broken Record Prayers. A collection of singles, B-sides, Peel Session tracks and various oddities, it includes 'Look at You Now (You're Crying)', their contribution to Fields and Streams, a double-CD compilation released on Kill Rock Stars in 2002. The song starts off predictably enough but at the beginning of the second verse descends into a wall of noise and distortion. Against this backdrop, Rachel Evans holds steady, her intonation just right.

Jeff Clarke is yet another Canadian but resides in Berlin, or at least that's where he recorded the single ‘Palliative Care’. According to his record label, Jeff's recent output represents ‘a stripped-down, melancholic change of pace’ from his previous work with garage rock outfit Demon’s Claws. I infer from this that their brand of garage rock must be quite different from The Rising Storm’s. At any rate, Bretford Records’ description seems apt, and it's exactly the sort of note I like to end a compilation on. Unless, that is, I happen upon anything in Bilbao at the end of the month. 

[Edit: I didn't.]

[Listen to here.]

LINER NOTES: POSTCARDS FROM ITALY [2018]

1.    Come Again – Au Pairs

2.    Nice – Kleenex

3.    Lie Dream of a Casino Soul – The Fall

4.    Cathedral – Felt

5.    Speaking Terms – Snail Mail

6.    If I Was an Animal – Chain & the Gang

7.    Drained [Single Version] – The Brian Jonestown Massacre

8.    Mountain - Stereolab

9.    Rated X – Miles Davis

10.  Inner City Blues – Reuben Wilson

11.  Maria Tambien – Khruangbin

12.  Colorado – Manassas

13.  Wicked Gil – Band of Horses

14.  Total Football – Parquet Courts

15.  Secret for a Song – Mercury Rev

16.  When It Grows Darkest – Laura Veirs

17.  Heat Wave – Snail Mail

18.  If Not Tomorrow – Comet Gain

19.  Postcards from Italy – Beirut
20.  John's Theme (Children Play) – Pino Donaggio

The 1960s saw a large number of female artistes making a credible impact across a wide range of genres. Selected randomly: Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick, Etta James, Fontella Bass, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Janis Joplin, Grace Slick, Bobbie Gentry, Patsy Kline, Emmylou Harris, Jacqui McShee, Sandy Denny, Julie Felix, Nico, Carole King, Dolly Parton, Nancy Sinatra, Tammy Wynette, Dusty Springfield, Julie Driscoll, Carol Kaye, Dorothy Ashby, Tina Turner, Tammy Terrell, The Supremes, The Shangri-Las, The Chiffons, The Ronettes. The early 1970s weren’t nearly so inclusive. The nascent heavy metal scene, the glam rock scene (ironically) and the southern rock scene were movements orientated towards the male. Patriarchy re-asserted itself by way of the sex, drugs and rock & roll myth, which encouraged women to prostrate themselves before the icons of the day: Mick Jagger, Robert Plant, David Bowie, Marc Bolan, etc.

It’s no coincidence that punk and new wave carried a strong female presence. Despite its provocative stance and reputation as anti-social, punk was actually a fairly conservative movement, rebelling simultaneously against the perceived decadence of the establishment and the music industry itself. The previous generation, who had sloganeered and campaigned through the 1960s, had sold out for a life of material worth and part-time licentiousness, and punk existed to shine a light on uncomfortable truths. Patti Smith, Debbie Harry, Tina Weymouth, Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson from the B52’s, Siouxsie Sioux, Au Pairs, The Slits, The Raincoats, Dolly Mixture, Poison Ivy of The Cramps, Gaye Advert of The Adverts… imagine what punk might have mutated into without them. At the very least, it wouldn’t have been half as interesting. At worst, ‘Oi!’ may have triumphed as punk’s prevalent strain, and machismo would once again have held sway.

Having been made redundant at the end of 2017, which I was sanguine about, the first half of 2018 brought with it weekly walks into Twickenham, whereupon I discovered Eel Pie Records. Although not financially stretched (it didn't stop me going to Hamburg in April) my predicament demanded that I exercise caution and avoid buying records impulsively. On one such visit they were playing the Au Pairs. It certainly sounded like my sort of thing, but to be sure I returned home and looked into it. A comparison with Gang of Four was enough to convince me, and by the end of the week Playing with a Different Sex was mine.

While conducting my research, YouTube wondered if I might like to listen to 'Nice' by Swiss all-girl post-punk band Kleenex, which I did. Kleenex changed their name to LiLiput after the Kimberly-Clark Corporation threatened to sue them for infringement of copyright. Eel Pie Records didn’t have a copy of Kleenex/LiLiPUT (The Complete Recordings), so I downloaded 'Nice' to follow on from 'Come Again' by the Au Pairs.

Hamburg

People who get upset over the death of someone famous like they would do a friend or relative are either weird or just pretending. More likely pretending. And yet when I found out that Mark E Smith had passed away I certainly felt sad about it. I put this down to the unusually high regard in which I held him as a lyricist and the length of time I’d been listening to The Fall (over 25 years at the time of writing). Such is the wealth of material available to Fall fans that I’m still discovering new tunes to this day, but how the hell did 'Lie Dream of a Casino Soul' evade me for so long?

The record label Cherry Red are in the process of re-issuing Felt’s back catalogue on vinyl. I intended on buying Forever Breathes the Lonely Word, which includes 'A Wave Crashed on Rocks', a song that I included on the compilation I retrospectively put together to reflect my listening habits in 1997-98. However, I found footage of Felt performing on Spanish TV and was impressed by their performance of 'Cathedral', which comes from their first LP, Crumbling The Antiseptic Beauty. I am presented with a dilemma, because although I’m working again I still can’t afford to spend 20-odd pounds willy-nilly, which is the going rate for vinyl these days.

This is why I purchased the album Lush by Lindsey Jordan – aka ‘Snail Mail’ – on CD (from HMV in Wimbledon). Had I been set on owning Lush on vinyl then I’d have returned to Eel Pie Records. Anyway, 'Speaking Terms' is my favourite track on the album. The record as a whole brings to mind American indie-rock of the early 1990s, before Lindsey Jordan was even born.

Early in the year – late February, a few days before the ‘beast from the east’ announced itself – Ian Svenonius’s group Chain & The Gang were back in town. I’d been trying to find a copy of the band’s sixth album, Experimental Music, since its release in September 2017, but to no avail; Rough Trade, Banquet Records, various independent records stores in Brighton – nowhere stocked it. As expected, copies were available at the Oslo in Hackney, where Ian and his band were scheduled to perform. The only tune Chain & The Gang deigned not to play from their latest offering was 'If I Was an Animal', maybe because it doesn’t lend itself so readily to Ian’s high-energy live performance.

Anton Newcombe was throwing demos around on YouTube. 'Drained' sounded like it was ready to go, but when the track-listing for The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s new album was announced it was found to be missing. I purchased Something Else regardless, and downloaded 'Drained'. (The song showed up later on the B-side of the single 'Hold That Thought' and also on The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s eponymously named album the following year, albeit in a slightly altered form.)

Like Felt, Stereolab are in the process of re-releasing a large portion of their back catalogue on vinyl. They began in 2018 by reissuing their ‘Switched On’ series: three separate compilations that gather together singles, B-sides, rarities, oddities. I already own Aluminum [sic] Tunes [Switched On Volume 3] and used to have a copy of Refried Ectoplasm [Switched On Volume 2] taped off of the Former Cohabitant from Brighton back in 1995. I’ve been without a cassette player for many years now, and so I thought I may as well purchase Volume 2. I wouldn’t normally include material like this on a contemporary compendium – tunes that date back to a completely different time and place – but it’s been so long since I’ve listened to this record that I’ve been able to enjoy it from a relatively fresh perspective. 'Mountain' was originally one half of a split-single released in 1993 ('Where Are All Those Puerto Rican Boys?' by Unrest was the other).

In summer – after the FIFA World Cup had finished, I’m pleased to note – I began work at The National Archives. One day there, I caught my supervisor talking music with a colleague, specifically about this track called 'Rated X' by Miles Davis. He was saying how he’d once heard it played at a club and that it cleared the dance floor almost at once. Since hearing 'Rated X' for myself, I can appreciate why this might happen. It starts with a discordant keyboard, played by Davis, before Al Foster on drums, James Mtume on percussion and Badal Roy on tablas all jump in at about 14 seconds with a funky and aggressive rhythm. After another 15 seconds Reggie Lucas joins in with a repetitive wah-wah guitar riff, which he plays relentlessly for the duration of the record. Michael Henderson’s bass chugs along in the background and Cedric Lawson and Khalil Balakrishna make weird noises with an electric piano and an electric sitar. Every so often the rhythm section will pause abruptly, just for second or so, before carrying on as if nothing ever happened. It’s one of most wonderful things I’ve ever heard.

Galvanised by this strange groove, I entered into another one of my hip hop phases. These typically last for a number of weeks but don’t usually involve listening to anything I haven’t already got. They can, however, prompt me to investigate particular samples, especially where they’ve been borrowed from jazz or funk. I derived 'Inner City Blues' by Reuben Wilson from 'Youthful Expression' by A Tribe Called Quest, a lesser known tune taken from their debut album People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm. Reuben Wilson is a jazz organist in the tradition of Jimmy Smith, or even Lonnie Smith. Marvin Gaye fans may have guessed that 'Inner City Blues' is a cover. Ramon Morris on tenor saxophone, Lloyd Davis on guitar, and so on.

I came by Khruangbin in Banquet Records, Kingston, where they were playing this group’s latest record, 'Con Todo El Mundo'. I thought about buying it there and then but was on my way to meet someone and didn’t fancy carrying it around. Their music is hard to describe: soul-jazz, psychedelia, world? I detect a sort of Moorish, middle-eastern vibe emanating from this trio, although they’re actually from Huston, Texas, and I’m still pondering whether or not I should go back and buy the album.

Manassas is the name of the group Stephen Still put together in 1971 after he crossed paths with The Flying Burrito Brothers while they were all touring the States. The Burritos were on their last legs, Stills sensed an opportunity and invited former Byrds man Chris Hillman, pedal-steel guitarist Al Perkins and fiddle player Byron Berline to join him and his band in the studio to work on what would become Manassas. I’ve written before about how Chris Hillman seemed content to play a more supporting role, be it in The Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers, or Manassas. But that’s an impressive palmarès, as a song like 'Colorado' proves.

When I returned to Eel Pie Records to buy Playing with a Different Sex by the Au Pairs, they had on Everything All the Time by Band of Horses, who are from Seattle. Not knowing what it was, I made enquiries and almost left the shop £40 lighter. 'Wicked Gil' was the track that nearly persuaded me, since downloaded. I was surprised to find that this album was 15 years old, which goes to show how little indie-rock changes nowadays.

If you’ve read my liner notes to 2014’s The Big Nod then you’ll know I’m partial to Parquet Courts. The first song I heard from their new album – 'Mardi Gras Beads' – didn’t do it for me. The second – 'Total Football' – did. Previous works by Parquet Courts (as well as Parkay Quarts) brought to mind the Velvet Underground. 'Total Football' sounds like 'Harmony in My Head' by Buzzcocks with Devo doing the chorus. I should probably buy the album Wide Awake! on the strength of this alone.

It’s about here that I start to build towards some sort of resolution. I had 'Secret for a Song' by Mercury Rev knocking around on my laptop, completely neglected, so in it went. This inadvertently provided a convenient platform from which to launch 'When It Grows Darkest' by Laura Veirs, yet another new release chanced upon in Eel Pie Records. Her music reminds me of Kristen Hirsh from Throwing Muses, although I don’t know how helpful it really is to say that.

'Heat Wave' was the song by Snail Mail that I could remember playing in Eel Pie Records. It's more vigorous than 'Speaking Terms' and serves as the compilation’s apex, because 'If Not Tomorrow' by Comet Gain, which follows, has something doleful about it. For those less familiar with my anthologies, they rarely pander to the year in which they’ve been compiled, but 'If Not Tomorrow' is one of six tunes actually released in 2018 – seven if you include the re-release of the Stereolab track, eight if you allow for the fact that the Chain & the Gang album wasn’t available to buy in the UK until the group brought it with them on this year's tour.

Venice

At the ripe old age of 18, Italy was the first foreign country I went to. My father spent a large part of his youth overseas, on account of my grandfather being a fitter in the RAF, and my mother never really liked flying all that much, so vacationing abroad didn't have the same appeal for them as it did for me. Then there was the expense, which was a question of my parents' priorities – slumming it with hoi polloi on Costa Brava not being one of them. Instead, our holidays would involve caravans and cottages in places like Brean Sands and Cornwall, or staying with friends in Woking and Kidderminster.

How I longed to go abroad, to the extent that I'd religiously tune into The Travel Show every week, hanging off Penny Junor and Simon Calder's every word. In 1993, just months before I left for university, I finally got my wish. To Pallanza in Italy, overlooking Lake Maggiore, with excursions to Como and Milan, also Switzerland. I was so happy. Italy had more than met my expectations, and If there had been some way I could have remained there, never to return, I would have. Since then I’ve been to Volterra, Siena, Florence and Genoa, and in 2018 I made it to Venice.

I never got around to buying The Flying Club Cup by Beirut in 2017 but it’s on that ever expanding list of records to potentially purchase. In the meantime I’ve downloaded 'Postcards from Italy'. The fact that I have recently been in the habit of sending memos from the same place is mere coincidence. The addition of 'John's Theme' from Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now, set in Venice, is on the other hand contrived.

[Listen to here.]

LINER NOTES: THE BIG NOD [2014]

1.    Montparnasse – Floating Points

2.    People of the Sticks – The Besnard Lakes

3.    Junebouvier – Whirr

4.    The Big Nod – Soft Walls

5.    Sand Dance – Temples

6.    Stoned and Starving – Parquet Courts

7.    Mum’s the Word – Chain & The Gang

8.    I Miss Your Bones – Hospitality

9.    No Need for a Leader – Unknown Mortal Orchestra

10.  Fat Lady of Limbourg – Dirt Dress

11.  Won’t Remember my Name – Soft Walls

12.  The Upsetter – Metronomy

13.  Passing Out Pieces – Mac Demarco

14.  Pretty Machines – Parkay Quarts

15.  John Brown – Papercuts

16.  Far from Any Road – The Handsome Family

17.  Pulling on a Line – Great Lake Swimmers

18.  Would That Not be Nice – Divine Fits

19.  Fever Boy – Femme

20.  Pseudologia Fantastica – Foster the People

21.  What a Pleasure – Beach Fossils

22.  Talking Backwards – Real Estate

23.  Re. Stacks – Bon Iver

24.  Rocky Mountain High – John Denver

25.  Hellhole Ratrace – Girls

26.  Winter Sundays – Your Headlights are On

Fed up with working peripatetically, I accepted a full-time position with an engineering firm in Kennington. I only bother to mention this because of the impact it had upon my listening habits. It was all to do with Spotify and this associated thing called Discover Weekly, which we listened to while we worked. It’s basically a playlist derived from an algorithm that tries to predict what you might like to listen to based on what you’ve previously searched for, and it is surprisingly astute. What I used to do was write down in a draft email the names of songs that I quite liked and then send them to my personal email address to listen to more carefully back home. Not all tracks stood up to closer inspection, but judging by the length of this playlist many did.

Floating Points is the name that neuroscientist Sam Shepherd records under, and he can count snooker legend Steve Davis as a fan. 'Montparnasse' is 11 minutes’ worth of down-tempo electronica, and not the sort of thing I’d usually use to kick off any compilation. It is one of the few tracks here that recalls a specific memory outside of environment in which it was discovered: waiting for the train at Putney after bouldering at Urban Ascent (now The Climbing Hangar) in Parsons Green. At around 8 minutes and 45 seconds in, the shuffling deep-house of 'Montparnasse' sabotages itself. The drumbeat vanishes, the track plays out to an ambient, Orbital-esque kind of refrain, and then just stops. This is how I can get away with following it up with 'People of the Sticks' by Canadian band The Besnard Lakes. It all plays out like the beginning of a James Bond film. 'Montparnasse' scores the opening action sequence and 'People of the Sticks' is the official theme, whence the credits role. That’s not how I intended it; the analogy suggested itself after the fact.

The Besnard Lakes could be described as post-rock with a touch of shoegaze, and so too could 'Junebouvier' by Whirr, who hail from the San Francisco Bay Area. Their contribution to my playlist is more urgent, with the bass guitar playing a more integral part. Is this what the kids had been listening to since I’d been away? Were those in the know also digging the Soft Walls? Information was scarce. I wanted to buy their LP but couldn’t find it anywhere (No Time, released July 2014). The Soft Walls sound like what might have happened if the John Cale-era Velvet Underground had decamped to Marrakech with Brian Eno, although a simile like that can lead your imagination almost anywhere. There’s also a North-West African vibe going on in 'Sand Dance' by Temples, a band that could be more generally described as psychedelic. Listening to it now, the shift between these two songs is too abrupt for my liking. Parquet Courts’ 'Stoned and Starving' imagines what the Velvet Underground might have sounded like if they’d invited John Cale to contribute towards Loaded.

I’d not heard of any of these bands before, let alone the individual tracks, and was pleasantly surprised that music like this was being made. Not that I had my ear to the ground, but artists such as Alt-J, The War on Drugs and Warpaint were getting airplay, so why not Soft Walls?

I hadn’t purchased a Chain & The Gang record since 2009’s Down With Liberty… Up With Chains!. I’m not sure why but I only found out about 2011’s Music’s Not For Everyone a year or so after its release, whereas 2012’s In Cool Blood completely passed me by. Then in May 2014, Chain & The Gang played at The Dome in Tufnell Park (supported by Comet Gain) to promote the release of their latest album, Minimum Rock N Roll, which I subsequently purchased after the gig.

More Spotify. 'I Miss Your Bones' by New York band Hospitality sounds a bit like The Breeders, which is all you need to know. At work, once we’d had enough of Discover Weekly, members of staff would take it in turns playing their personal preferences. I took the opportunity to explore further the Unknown Mortal Orchestra and selected their track 'No Need for a Leader' for inclusion on this compilation.

'The Fat Lady of Limbourg' by Dirt Dress is a cover of a Brian Eno tune. I only became aware of this just now, literally before writing that last sentence, after rummaging around on the internet looking for something to say about Dirt Dress. There’s not much information out there, which suggests they’re no longer active, but their raucous take on 'The Fat Lady of Limbourg' is certainly equal to Eno’s slower, slightly sinister original.

Another contribution from the Soft Walls, and probably the better of the two, 'Won’t Remember My Name' sounds like The Jesus and Mary Chain reinterpreting 'All Tomorrow’s Parties' by the Velvet Underground, maybe off the back of a particularly heavy session.

Metronomy are on a bit of a downer too, but of a different kind. 'Why you giving me a hard time tonight?' asks the protagonist in 'The Upsetter', presumably to the object of his affection. I’m not sure of the song’s precise meaning but hearts have obviously been broken, as the wistful guitar solo that plays the song out attests.

'Passing Out Pieces' by Mac DeMarco is a weird tune. A discordant keyboard hammers out a discomfiting melody while Mac ponders the price of following his chosen profession. The video is even weirder. Mr Wilkinson and one our bouldering buddies (let's call him The Florist on account of his profession) went to see him play live, and they rated the experience very highly.

Parquet Courts again, except this time they’re referring to themselves as Parkay Quarts. Due to a combination of familial and scholarly commitments, the rhythm section didn’t contribute much to the album Content Nausea, which explains the nomenclatural reconfiguration. 'Pretty Machines' harks back to The Strokes at the start of their career, while again sounding a lot like Loaded-era Velvet Underground.

'John Brown' by Papercuts was released in 2007, which goes to show how Spotify’s Discover Weekly isn’t all to do with pushing new music onto the listener. I could have done with something like this in 2007 – indie-folk before it went mainstream. This also applies to 'Far from Any Road' by The Handsome Family, which dates back even further to 2003. I didn’t realise at the time, but the reason this song was probably doing the rounds was because it was being used as the theme song for HBO’s Gothic crime drama True Detective. It exhibits more of an alternative-country sound than the Papercuts’ track, but the terms ‘country’ and ‘folk’ are often interchangeable. 'Pulling on a Line' (2009) by Canadian folk rock band the Great Lake Swimmers occupies the same ballpark. You can see from this how Spotify does its business.

My enthusiasm for my place of work was already beginning to wane. The managing director, although a nice man, worried too much about things he needn’t have worried about, which meant I was kept on a tight leash. This is a common affliction among managers. They are control freaks by nature, and probably need to be. I also hadn’t taken a holiday in a long while, which was put right when I flew to Valencia with my partner for a long weekend towards the end of the summer, providing the perfect antidote to what would be the coolest August in 21 years, as well as one of the wettest.

This paled into insignificance when set against the grave illness of our friend from North Yorkshire. It didn’t end well – life is a seedy business at times. What can you do, other than manage one’s own sense of terror. Maybe that’s why I’m bothering to write any of this: to deny my mortality, or to overcome it – my own memento mori.

Divine Fits was the result of a collaboration between Britt Daniel from Spoon and Dan Boeckner from Wolf Parade that spawned 2012’s A Thing Called Divine Fits. 'Would That Not Be Nice' is a piece of slightly polished, slightly jagged alternative rock with a strong melody.

Femme (real name Laura Bettinson) released the single 'Fever Boy' in late 2013. I can’t understand why it wasn’t a massive hit. You might call it ‘alternative dance’, comparable to music made by people like M.I.A. and Santigold.

When Foster the People broke through with the single 'Pumped Up Kicks' in 2010-2011 I wasn’t impressed. I couldn’t stand the overly jolly bass line, nor the treatment of the lead vocal which had been synthesized in some way. For a while, I mistakenly thought the song was called Pumped Up Kids and that it related to children who were into bodybuilding. After realising my error I then assumed it to be about trainers. It kind of is, but not in a celebratory sense: it’s about kids wearing kicks having to run for their life from a psychotic adolescent carrying a gun. All this aside, 'Pseudologia Fantastica' is from the group’s second album, Supermodel, released in 2014, and has been described by one critic as ‘psychedelic dance-pop’ and by another as a ‘psychedelic, shoe-gazey wig-out’. You decide.

Beach Fossils were a band that I always intended to follow up on, but I never got around to it. Maybe I will now. The reason for this is that their song 'What a Pleasure' (taken from their 2011 EP What a Pleasure) reminded me of some of the bands signed to Sarah Records – The Springfields perhaps.

Released as a single in January 2014, 'Talking Backwards' by Real Estate also evokes the spirit of Sarah, but this time it’s the Field Mice that comes to mind. The Florist likes this song, and it makes me think of driving in his van back from Bermondsey after a session at the Biscuit Factory, or even down to Fontainebleau for a climbing holiday in 2015.

Valencia

Now for something altogether gloomier: 'Re. Stacks' by Bon Iver. All I knew regarding Bon Iver was that their principle songwriter, Justin Vernon, had a beard. That’s still pretty much all I know about them, which doesn’t in any way diminish my enthusiasm for 'Re. Stacks'. It concerns Vernon’s gambling habits, although the bigger picture is that he was also in the process of surmounting a number of personal obstacles. 'Re. Stacks' is a folkish sort of tune and so opens the door for 'Rocky Mountain High' by John Denver, even if it does come from a different mental place.

Did you know that in the USA there’s such a thing as state songs? Moreover, sometimes a state may have more than one, as is the case with Colorado, whose state songs are 'Where the Columbines Grow' by A J Fynn, and – you’ve guessed it – 'Rocky Mountain High' by John Denver. Under normal circumstances I might have drawn a line here and finished on a (Rocky Mountain) high, but Discover Weekly had other ideas.

'Hellhole Ratrace' by Girls would have made for a great climax. It’s a slow burner lasting all of 6 minutes and 56 seconds. The sucker punch comes at 3 minutes 45, where an electric guitar kicks in and singer Christopher Owens proceeds to plead the following lines four times over:

But I don't want to cry my whole life through,

Yeah I wanna do some laughing too,

So come on, come on, come on, come on and laugh with me.

And I don't want to die without shaking up a leg or two,

Yeah I wanna do some dancing too,

So come on, come on, come on, come on and dance with me.

It pains me to hear people say that they don’t like this or that song because they find it depressing. This sentiment will often be lazily directed towards artistes like The Smiths, R.E.M. or Leonard Cohen. What they really mean is that such music demands too much of their attention and that they can’t be bothered to listen to the actual words. All they’re reacting to are minor chords, a slower tempo, or a lugubrious vocal – the lyrical content could veritably be triumphalist.

I don’t know whether 'Winter Sundays' by Norwegian band Your Headlights are On is supposed to be sad or not, although you’d think so given the title. Whatever the sentiment, it is not depressing but a thing of beauty, and it's where I draw my line.

[Edit: Turns out that the lyrics to 'Winter Sundays' are based upon the poem Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden, which is indeed rather sad. It follows that the song is sad too, although by meddling with the final line the poem's actual meaning has been diminished.]

[Listen to here.]