The Stooges – “The Weirdness” (2007)

First listen:

I promised myself that I would only write about music I loved.

I am, kind of.

But “The Weirdness” is deeply, distressingly ordinary. The production is the muddiest of Albini’s career, the vocals sound phoned-in , the riffs sound second-hand…The drumming rocks but you can’t just listen to the drums, not on a Stooges record anyway.

Just PayPal a couple bucks directly to the Asheton’s pension fund and go dig out ‘Funhouse’ again.

Now if you really want to know how to gracefully grow old disgracefully…

Second listen:

The vocals still sound appalling but the muddiness is starting to gather a little clarity.  Perhaps the major issue is, strangely, that Ron and Scott have still got it (whatever it is) but that whatever happens at a Stooges show live these days, Iggy isn’t getting up in the studio.  ‘ATM’ is actually a pretty cool song and the sonic murk is starting to resolve into three (or four – Steve Mackay chips in now and then) guys recording in a room.  ‘Free and Freaky’ is a bona fide pop song.

This record’s going to take work.

The National – “Alligator” 2005

It’s late but I’ve noticed that I haven’t posted anything here for a while. So here’s a quick nudge for the uninitiated and reminder for those acolytes looking for something to keep them going until the new Arcade Fire arrives, assuming you haven’t already copped one of the leaks. Me, I’m waiting. Sex before marriage is one thing but some things are worth holding out for.

Anyway, “Alligator” by The National is one of my favourite records ever. Every time I play it, I discover something new. Whether it’s the slippery descending riffs of “Baby, We’ll Be Fine”, the wistful “Looking for Astronauts” or the weirdly triumphant screw-up narrating “Mr November” (‘I won’t fuck you over/I’m Mr November’), you’ll be touched, moved, reduced to jelly…It’s a marvellous record, like the Wilco of Hotel Yankee Foxtrot growing a sense of humour and deciding to cover ‘A Rush Of Blood To The Head’. ‘Lit Up’ is a marvellous rocker. ‘Secret Meeting’ is a strange tale of imaginary (?) bodyguards and shifting identities. The singer (I can’t remember his name now and I’m too lazy to look it up) sounds like Ian Curtis with good intonation. The band play a hooky alternative rock leavened with steel guitars and and half-a-dozen diffferent layers of reverb settings.

Enough already. Trust me on this.

Links: Their site has a few mp3s. You’ll track it down.

Arizona Amp and Alternator – “Arizona Amp and Alternator”

“Arizona Amp and Alternator” is a Howe Gelb album, roughly number 30 in hopefully a very long series of records by the prolific Giant Sand mainman. It’s one of his more homespun statements, carrying as it does an aura of Howe and his mates set up in his front room with Howe keeping comfortably close to his piano for those odd splashes of jazzy colour whilst focusing mostly on “playing good guitar on beat-up strings”, to quote an earlier tune off “Confluence”. As has now become standard procedure for his more ‘off-piste’ issues, “A, A & A” features a number of new songs, reconsiderations of a couple of older numbers (including ‘Blue Marble Girl’) and a few curveballs, such as a gently loping treatment of Traffic’s ‘The Low Spark Of High-Heeled Boys’. Given that the ‘mates’ include the sadly departed Grandaddy (who play on the Traffic cover), M.Ward, John PArish and Scout Niblett.

The extent to which all of this will or won’t rock your particular world, depends largely on whether Gelb is the great unsung genius of our time or an annoyingly inconsistent auteur who really ought to spend more time in proper studios and get himself a producer.

Recently, acclaimed records like ‘Sno Angel’ and the sympathetic backing of the Thrill Jockey label have suggested that we can have it both ways with stormingly consistent sets like ‘Sno Angel’ and the most recent Giant Sand album alternating with ah, looser releases. AA&A falls clearly in the latter category, ranging from taut acoustic ballads to shambolic strings of almost spoken lyrical non-sequiturs over a backing sufficiently tentative to wonder whether the song was being made up on the spot, to moments of plain-spun lyrical beauty. Some songs (such as the aforementioned Blue Marble Girl remake) cover all three. Then there are the random little moments such as the appalling-on-paper but charming-in-reality remake of ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’ as a duet set in Arizona. Someone called Maria Lorette Friis coos a charming Julie London impression whilst Gelb rumbles away at the bottom of his range. There’s always something interesting happening, even if it takes a number of listens to decrypt exactly what.

AA&A is a definitely a record for acolytes, not neophytes. It’s Gelb at his must spontaneous- frustrating as hell but with enough hits to make the effort rewarding. Beginners, start with the compilation ‘Selections: 1990 to 2000′, ‘Centre of the Universe’, ‘Storm’ and ‘Chore of Enchantment’, then ‘Confluence’ and ‘Sno Angel’. Then you’re on your own.

Links – Giant Sand’s homepage. Also see the excellent array of live recordings on the Internet Music Archive. Now go buy all his records.

The Sisters of Mercy – “Floodland” (1987, 2006)

An enthusiasm for “Floodland” is the sort of thing that instantly dates one as a disaffected survivor of the post-punk wars. In line with that, Andrew Eldritch (né Taylor) is either one of the most cynically destructive anti-artists post-punk produced or a satirist up there with Chris Morris, albeit one who’s only ever written a single, very long sketch. Every note the Sisters ever played dripped homage, black dread and the snide smart-ass mouth of the intelligent kid in the back row who keeps getting smacked by both classmates and teachers.  Eldritch never could keep his mouth shut, always had to have the last word, even if that word was “We’re all buggered.”

“Floodland” was the second Sisters record. Nominally, the band consisted of Eldritch and one Patricia Morrison but by this stage of the game, the Sisters were clearly Eldritch’s game. It’s a shameless, gleaming thing of thunderous, mechanical beats and layered guitars.  Jim Steinman (it seemed like utter heresy at the time, which was no doubt the idea) produced two tracks, both as gloriously over the top and apocalyptic as one could hope for. Of the two, ‘Dominion/Mother Russia’ picks up where ‘Black Planet’ from the first Sisters album left off. Huge choirs chant ‘Dominion!’,  Eldritch rumbles darkly about Mother Russia raining “down, down, down!” and Doktor Avalanche (faithful drum machine) makes like an angry T34.  ‘This Corrosion’ is even more wonderfully silly – a ten minute heavy metal disco goth opera devoted to gloating about what a screw-up his old guitar player is.  Of the rest, “Lucretia My Reflection” is a masterclass in looping a thumping great beat and bassline, 1959 is actually quite touching little piano ballad and the remainder is suitably moody and melancholy.

Eldritch frequently claimed that the Sisters were never a goth band (“We are a rock and roll band” proclaims their website, archly) but ‘Floodland’ begs to differ, from the cover (black, moonlight lit dark waters, sun glasses and Patricia Morrison) to the last sonorous thud of ‘Neverland’. But it’s goth in a good way, the way exemplified by Neil Gaiman’s recreation of Death as an ever-smiling, razor-witted goth babe – simultaneous self-deprecating and portentous, impeccably and ludicrously over-dressed with the emphasis on ‘ludic’.

I hadn’t played this record in ages – I ‘d forgotten how much I loved it.

(The Sisters lurk at http://www.the-sisters-of-mercy.com/.  It doesn’t give much away. Of this reissue, the most interesting bonuses are ‘Emma’ – yes, it’s a cover of the Hot Chocolate hit and it’s essential – and ‘Neverland’ in full, which basically proves that editing the 12 minute original down to a fragment for was an excellent idea. Must dig out my tape of their cover of Dolly Parton’s ‘Jolene’.)

The Knife – “Silent Shout” (2006)

I’m still kind of baffled that “Silent Shout” ended up as Pitchfork’s album of 2006. Maybe it just crept in at 19 or 20 on the shortlist of every single contributor and snuck in by stealth.

Mind you, it’s steadily made its way into my own consciousness via similar means. On the surface, it’s nothing special – icy Nordic vocals to the point of cliche, chattering 80s sequencer runs, digital reverb and echo to the nth degree, processed harmonies, Roland beats. Sort of Abba meets Soft Cell via Black Celebration. I keep deleting it off my iPod and but reloading it soon after.

It’s playing right now, soundtracking the brocoli steamer. There’s nothing here I haven’t heard before. Perhaps because it’s all here in the same place, a conveniently wrapped up bundle post-electro European chilliness (there’s nothing remotely chilled about this) for those dispassionate moments. There’s a sort android yearning to “The Captain” which always makes me look up or put down whatever I’m reading and maybe half a dozen other tracks.

I suppose I’ll just have to keep puzzling. Meanwhile, their website has some bits and pieces to listen to and there are more streams here – go puzzle for youselves.