0:18

Now this next recruiter want to talk about

0:20

him. No, I didn't know this record to

0:22

well as I remember hearing at the time.

0:24

And yeah, cup of the big videos I've

0:26

listened to properly over this last weekend or

0:29

is and I actually think it's a masterpiece.

0:31

I say that and it's not really the

0:33

kind of music I would listen to normally,

0:35

but d Angelos Voodoo now. He's

0:37

a fascinating carried. So this record was

0:39

big soda. One. Point Seven million

0:41

copies according to wikipedia here because he want

0:44

a few albums I didn't buy on this

0:46

list is what leave nice. I didn't by

0:48

the time but but I have to say

0:50

listening to it now maybe is something to

0:52

do with listening to and I'm from two

0:54

thousand and two Thousand and Twenty four Yes,

0:57

sounds incredible so just to give people a

0:59

little bit of a background. So this album

1:01

De Angelo was an artist you'd made one

1:03

our previous to this which have been a

1:05

big are and be soul funk breakthrough record.

1:08

He took five years making this follow up

1:10

record called Voodoo. which in

1:12

which he completely reinvented his hand

1:14

in sound. he wants to get

1:16

better. more organic palette. And

1:18

the big thing about this record is

1:20

the use of dealer time. Now war

1:23

is still a time most people probably

1:25

asking. some people might be know. There

1:27

was a Dj Cool J Diller who

1:29

I do have some hours by who

1:31

experimented with the idea of combining different

1:34

rhythmic feals similar tiniest li and it's

1:36

something that comes from hip hop which

1:38

is where hip hop horses were using

1:40

break beats from different records and sometimes

1:42

those rec those bright bees would be

1:45

over light and they would have completely

1:47

different feals. Sure. Someone will be really

1:49

pushing the bay and another will be really

1:51

behind the be. So what you get when

1:53

you put those to piece together as Dj

1:55

will be this natural kind of out of

1:57

time. This for want of a bet of

1:59

expression. And what happened was there's

2:01

a lot of live musicians who are listening to

2:03

these hip hop records with this kind of very

2:06

messy, loose, out of time grooves

2:09

and learning how to play. So

2:12

this album, the main co-conspirator is Questlove,

2:14

who people may know. He's

2:17

a documentary maker now. He's made that brilliant summer

2:19

of soul documentary. Brilliant

2:22

drummer. The rhythm section on this record is Questlove

2:24

and Pino Palladino, the bass player. But

2:27

grooves are incredible because they

2:29

have these natural, loose

2:31

things you would listen to superficially and say,

2:34

it's all out of time. And one of the

2:36

anecdotes I love about this record is Lenny Kravitz apparently was booked

2:38

for a session to come in and play guitar and he said,

2:40

I can't play on that. Your drummer can't play. And

2:43

it's Questlove, is the drummer. He said, no, it's deliberate.

2:45

And he stormed out. I'm not going to play on

2:47

that shit. Sort it out. Get

2:50

the drums. And when you listen

2:52

to this music, it's fascinating because

2:54

the bass drum and the snare drum and

2:56

the high all seem to inhabit

2:58

a different place

3:00

in time and space. Well, you get that, I think,

3:03

on the tricky albums, you know, in

3:05

the 90s where he is overlaying

3:07

so many rhythms samples that you

3:09

don't know where it's, you know,

3:11

the music constantly shifting and

3:13

I listen to it based on you putting on

3:15

the list. And yeah, I think it's really good.

3:17

It sounds fantastic. It

3:20

sort of reminded me of an updated

3:23

version of Prince

3:25

that is most powerful and withdrawn.

3:27

Very much. Prince is

3:29

the obvious successor to Prince. Yeah. And

3:33

maybe as well, I think it's Sly, some of

3:35

the early 70s. Completely. So

3:38

when they were making this record, apparently they spent a

3:40

lot of time listening to There's a Right going on.

3:42

Also to Prince. So you're spot on. Also

3:44

his voice that he sings in falsetto in a

3:46

way that Prince, you know, when Prince sang in

3:48

falsetto, very similar. But what D'Angelo

3:51

does is he overlays his voice into these huge

3:53

blocks, like overdubbing his voice seven or

3:55

eight times. So you get these huge

3:57

blocks of falsetto's soul.

4:00

It's a brilliant singer. It's

4:03

almost like the first, I mean

4:05

I'm no expert at all, I have

4:08

to say, I'm saying this in ignorance

4:10

to someone that grew up listening

4:12

to heavy metal and progressive rock and

4:14

post-punk. It seems to me like this

4:17

might be the first post-hip-hop attempt

4:19

at creating live soul and

4:21

funk music. And of course you

4:23

do have bands like Fuji's just around the corner, Lauren

4:25

Hill, all those other artists coming in. So

4:27

it's this kind of neo-soul music which is they're getting

4:30

back to a more organic palette,

4:32

playing it live, the

4:34

way Sly and Prince did, but

4:37

it's post-hip-hop. So they're

4:39

playing in a way that is

4:41

informed by people like Jay Dilla

4:43

who've been experimenting with these loops

4:46

that shouldn't go together and you

4:48

get these natural kind of strange

4:52

rhythmic inaccuracies. Well

4:54

that's a sort of more interesting version, I think,

4:56

you know, we both discussed this of how autotune

4:59

on vocals, now people sing naturally in

5:02

an autotuned style. Some of them not

5:04

even realising what's going on in the

5:06

record and I guess it's that and

5:08

whereas I agree with you, I think

5:10

rhythmically it's kind of fascinating, I'm

5:13

not so keen on the natural voice attempting

5:15

the autotune. No I'm not either and just

5:17

to be clear, that's not on this record

5:19

Guy, you're talking about the

5:22

general pop-modern pop-y. It

5:24

was really interesting and I think what again

5:26

it made me think of is that this

5:28

D'Angelo album and the Radiohead album, they

5:30

really sold in an era when

5:32

things really sold and we

5:35

always talk about this golden era of rock music

5:37

and pop music as being 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s,

5:40

but actually it bleeds into 2000,

5:42

the 21st century, where

5:45

not only are great albums selling

5:47

in massive quantities, experimental albums are

5:49

getting to number one. I

5:52

think again, when I was a kid, I

5:54

remember we were teenagers when things like ghosts

5:56

were in the top five, you know, the

5:58

Japan's ghost is top five. five and

6:00

Laurie Anderson's so Superman and I think

6:02

of that as a golden time you

6:04

know Gary Newman our friends electric where

6:06

extraordinary seismic musical shifts were in your

6:08

top five but actually it's still happening

6:11

in 2000 Kid

6:13

A, D'Angelo even

6:15

Tool in the metal world around this

6:17

time were getting number one records where

6:20

music which absolutely reinvented the vocabulary of

6:22

music is huge. To be

6:24

fair as we speak the smile wall of

6:26

wall of eyes is number three

6:29

in the album charts but yet they are the anomaly

6:31

they are anomaly yeah absolutely and again we

6:33

go back to that that's the kind of

6:35

magic and they're in the late 50s that's

6:37

the magic trick that Tom and Johnny have

6:39

managed to pull off you know which is

6:41

it's almost like but you know it's almost

6:44

like beyond belief how they managed to do

6:46

that okay so I mean I have to

6:48

say I'm I was pretty blown away with

6:50

with the D'Angelo album and he's also very

6:52

interesting characters he's quite troubled he's almost got

6:54

that Scott Walker thing we disappears in ten

6:57

years and then comes back with another record

6:59

which will be another reinvention. Does he

7:01

do the Scott Walker go painting and decorating?

7:03

Well I don't know maybe he goes painting

7:05

and decorating between albums. That's what I do

7:08

you know maybe become a toilet cleaner for

7:10

a year or so. Since he made this

7:12

album he's made one further record called Black

7:14

Messiah in 2013 which again takes

7:17

the whole aspect of D'Angelo time even further you

7:19

know but I think you

7:21

know this album is definitely something if people have

7:23

not heard it it's

7:25

fascinating if you don't like it musically

7:28

just listen to the way

7:30

they're using rhythm on this record I've never heard anything

7:32

like it I'm well I say that

7:34

I have got some Jay Diller albums in my collection

7:37

but Jay Diller was a DJ he was using break

7:39

beats this is a live drummer I said

7:42

to Gavin I said is it easy to play

7:44

you know and this is fucking hard Gavin the

7:46

drummer in my band Poppy Poppy Tree in our

7:48

band Poppy Poppy Tree I

7:50

said I said to him is it easy to

7:53

do that Jay Diller? He said no it's fucking

7:55

hard you know because you're basically as a drummer

7:57

you're unlearning yeah everything you've learned to do you

7:59

know play in time, get

8:02

the groove in the pocket, no, this is the

8:04

opposite of that, this is like make everything sort

8:06

of sound like the shanks. Anyway,

8:10

I was absolutely fascinated by this record.

8:12

But also, I mean again, I think

8:14

it's tied together because the material's good,

8:16

his voice is strong and as you

8:19

say those layered vocals sound sumptuous. Yeah

8:21

and the production is amazing, yeah. Since

8:24

I left you by the avalanches, this Australian, I

8:26

guess you call them a plundophonic span in the

8:28

sense that everything is made up of, you know,

8:30

we talked about Jay Dilla being a DJ

8:33

and using only samples to create the

8:35

music. Here's a band also,

8:37

you know, making music entirely. I

8:40

think almost, is it almost entirely

8:42

or is it entirely? I would

8:45

think it might be entirely. Entirely,

8:47

entirely constructed from samples

8:49

and I think I read on Wikipedia something

8:51

like three and a half thousand uncleared samples

8:53

on this record. I listened

8:55

to it, I mean I'm a

8:57

big fan of the DJ Shadow

9:00

record from this time introducing, which

9:02

also is a plundophonic record, entirely

9:04

constructed. This is almost like a

9:06

slightly dreamier, poppier version of

9:09

that approach in a way to me. For me it's close

9:12

to the way Fat Boy Slim

9:14

was, you know, creating sample basses.

9:16

It's got a feel-good-on-the-beach quality, hasn't

9:19

it? Yeah, which meant I kind

9:21

of, it wasn't, I like

9:23

miserable music as you know Tim and I think

9:25

you like miserable music too. It was,

9:27

it's clever, it's nice, it feels a little

9:30

bit frivolous. I mean, my personal taste. I

9:32

suppose that the one thing I'd say, you

9:34

know, in its favour beyond its massive success

9:37

is given it comes from let's

9:39

say 3,000 different sources

9:41

it's plundered, it's kind of got its own

9:43

sound actually. Absolutely, it does, yeah. I mean

9:45

it's very, very clever, very clever. I wonder

9:48

if also there's a sense that in 2000

9:50

it would have sounded revolutionary in

9:52

2024. Yeah. Those kind of records just don't

9:56

anymore. The two are pennies these days,

9:58

then record them. Well. I don't

10:00

know if it's too penny, but I think people have stopped making that

10:02

kind of music in a sense because It's

10:05

almost so easy now You just buy you buy some

10:07

software and you get a bunch of you know loops

10:10

and you know, you know me Whereas at the time

10:12

it would have been revolution. I mean when introducing came

10:14

out the DJ shadow record came out The

10:17

fact that he this crate digger was

10:19

sampling Tangerine dream

10:21

the monkeys Pahola,

10:24

yeah, pekka, pahole. I mean, you know,

10:26

this is true crate digging and putting

10:29

these samples together I

10:32

found that really refreshing but I don't think it

10:34

would sound refreshing now because it's been done and

10:36

also now you've probably got The copyright problem that

10:38

whereas at that point it was kind of it

10:40

was the Wild West now everyone's after your money

10:42

You know, yeah, that is true. Yeah people people

10:44

have cotton dawn that You

10:47

can't you can't just sample whatever you like anymore Heartbreaker

10:50

by Ryan Adams. This was another record

10:53

over the years People have waxed

10:55

lyrical to me about in fact only a couple of

10:57

nights ago I had a friend over for dinner and

10:59

I mentioned we were gonna be talking about this record

11:01

and he said to me Oh my god, that was

11:03

my jam, you know that that time of my life

11:06

heartbreaker by Ryan Adams It's alt Americana,

11:08

isn't it? But it's not as alt as

11:10

I'd like it to be is is is

11:12

my line on this It's

11:15

very traditional isn't it? Very traditional.

11:17

It sounds great. The production is

11:19

great. He's a great singer The

11:23

the songs are really strong But

11:26

it's all very very familiar that the

11:28

whole musical vocabulary is very very familiar

11:30

to me To me,

11:32

it's not as old as I would need it

11:34

to be to to interest me You

11:37

know you joke last time about pitchfork albums a year

11:39

and this is just kind of got mojo album of

11:41

the year written on And to me

11:43

it just sounded like I don't know 1960s

11:46

to early 1970s Dylan most of

11:48

it with the with the harmonica

11:50

to me it was yeah, the

11:52

chords are so Obvious to

11:54

me it's Springsteen. Yes, it's the early spring

11:56

scene. I don't you know, we've talked about

11:58

this on the show before We both

12:00

think Springsteen's brilliant, but neither of us really like

12:02

it. So he does it really well. Don't get

12:04

me wrong, he does it really well. And it

12:06

sounds great. And as you say, he's got the

12:08

voice, he's got the harmonica chops. He's

12:11

got those chords. He's got

12:13

it all. He's got it all. Oh,

12:15

he's got the looks. He's beautiful, man. But anyway,

12:18

Amy, I thought was interesting. There was one

12:20

track that was a kind of a funny... Yeah, Amy's got

12:22

a little melotron. That was one. Yeah. Again, melotron, which is

12:24

used in a lot of albums this year. But that,

12:27

I thought, OK, God, if you'd have done an

12:29

album like that, I'm in. But most

12:31

of it, I just kind of... I'd been there with

12:34

Bob Dylan, I'd been there with Neil Young, I'd been

12:36

there with Bruce Springsteen. And there

12:38

wasn't that kind of colouration that

12:40

just woke me up. You

12:42

know, whereas when you're listening to the

12:44

D'Angelo, even though I've heard the Sly and the

12:47

Family Stone, I've heard the Prince, he was

12:49

doing something because he's slightly off with it. Yeah,

12:51

exactly. You can hear keys into what you know.

12:53

But there are things that you don't know. And

12:56

I guess that was it. It just I didn't

12:58

feel there was anything I didn't know. Yeah.

13:00

No, I'm sorry if that's, you know,

13:02

it sounds cool. I mean, listen, we're saying a bit

13:04

like we said with Springsteen, a bit like we said

13:06

with Dylan. We

13:09

think it's brilliant and we can see why

13:11

people like it. And I don't mean this to

13:13

sound like I'm damning it with fake praise.

13:15

I'm not I'm not meaning to sound patronising

13:17

it anyway. It's just not my kind of thing.

13:20

It's brilliant. But to me, it's not it's

13:22

not old enough. There's not enough in

13:24

there that makes me think, oh, you

13:26

know, wow, that's interesting. Exactly. So when

13:28

I think, you know, something we might

13:30

discuss, but when Mark Kozilek does the

13:32

same because he does he operates in

13:34

that territory. There are some

13:37

really unusual chord voicings or that

13:39

voice, which is other. All that

13:41

little lyrical sort of epic. Yeah.

13:43

It's like that's just what we're

13:45

saying is heartbreak. Get off

13:47

my record. I feel like I mean, I might

13:49

be doing it to service, but I feel like

13:52

having listened to Ryan Adams album, I've heard him

13:54

talk a lot about with drinking whiskey. Yeah. Pontiacs.

13:56

And hanging out with girls in the bleachers, which

13:58

we all did in Warren. all did in

14:00

Hemel Hempstead yeah yeah it's a very American

14:03

sounding record isn't it yeah so maybe that's

14:05

partly a reason that's that kind of reason

14:07

why Springsteen has never really spoken to even

14:09

though I know he's a brilliant lyricist it's

14:12

never really spoken to me because I don't

14:14

recognize that well there's a mixture of us

14:16

it doesn't have the blonde in the bleachers

14:18

and it's poetry well and Taylor

14:20

Swift is doing it now to me I think some

14:23

of their lyrics are amazing they're very American as well

14:25

but yeah horses for courses anyway

14:28

let's talk about Post Rock,

14:30

Slowcore and American India we kind of lump them

14:32

all in together yeah yeah because they do cross

14:34

over quite a bit obviously they do so

14:38

Post Rock's been around for a few

14:40

years by now tortoise seemed like they were

14:43

the kind of you know

14:45

standard bearers for Post Rock for a

14:47

while they released their album called standards this

14:49

year which I thought was quite weak by

14:51

their standards but there are some new there

14:53

are some new artists kind of coming through

14:56

God Speed You Black Emperor's big epic

14:59

masterpiece Lift Your Skinny Fists like

15:02

Antanas to Heaven came

15:04

out this year double

15:06

CD they kind of got their gag haven't

15:08

they I love their gag you know their gag is is

15:10

kind of build up build

15:12

up build up build up build up

15:15

build up build up build up crescendo

15:17

breakdown ambient ambient field recording field recording

15:19

field recording build up build up build

15:21

up build up build up build up

15:24

crescendo ambient

15:26

bit ambient bit so violins and cellos with

15:28

lots of reverb and make it a little

15:30

bit possible and it's a

15:33

great gag and I love it and they

15:35

kind of explore it from every possible sort

15:37

of perspective on this one sprawling double album

15:40

it's very cinematic it's

15:42

it's beautiful so that

15:44

for me this is the kind of masterpiece of of

15:47

Post Rock for want of want of a better

15:49

word what do you feel about this album Tim

15:53

I mean it's all right I don't it it's

15:55

all right I don't know it just sounded like

15:57

an early Genesis rehearsal at times to me what's

15:59

wrong with us You like Genesis, you

16:03

know, pretty primitive military drums

16:05

build up the build up the body to

16:08

me it's very predictable even from the off

16:10

I was never blown away by it. Okay,

16:13

I think it's really beautiful. I mean

16:15

it listen it doesn't it doesn't sort

16:17

of captivate me or hold my attention

16:19

for long periods of time. It does

16:21

become a bit backgroundy after one and

16:23

the and the gag does kind of

16:25

play itself out time and time again

16:27

this sort of slowly building up crescendo

16:29

with the sort of ambient sections in

16:31

between and the use of field recordings

16:34

I think is really quite interesting. I mean that's

16:36

not something I'd heard in any other post rock

16:38

bands until that point as far as I remember

16:40

the use of sort of found you know like

16:42

capturing sort of religious evangelists

16:44

on the street and almost

16:46

having them in place of a vocalist

16:48

you know they become they kind of

16:51

become the voice of the music don't

16:53

they those kind of those monologues. I

16:55

mean I'm being obviously you know I'm playing the

16:58

devil's advocate on this one being deliberately critical. How

17:00

dare you. But I think it

17:02

was just one of those albums that didn't

17:04

grab me in the way I felt it should. Do

17:06

you feel that way about any of the records or

17:08

you feel they're all I mean they all

17:11

pretty much everything I've heard this kind

17:13

of there's a real formula and yeah

17:15

and it's also more traditional than people

17:17

think and again out of those other

17:19

than as you said maybe the overall

17:21

combination lots of I've heard you know

17:23

I've got the minimalist classical albums

17:26

I've got the post rock albums it doesn't

17:28

quite but you know for me if I'm

17:30

listening to think of post rock weed it's

17:32

not post rock band but I think of

17:34

the way in which the swans can go

17:37

from using one note or a chord lifting

17:39

lifting lifting lifting explosion. So

17:42

I think that what they did

17:44

I'd heard it in

17:46

a more intense way in other bands so I was

17:48

thinking you know again it's like I'm going to be

17:50

blown away by this and I was

17:53

kind of slightly perplexed because I'd got it

17:55

already in my collection maybe

17:57

the way in which they combined elements was

18:00

original factor. I

18:02

think they transcend that more than you give

18:04

them credit for. They definitely have their own

18:06

sound. They're from Montreal, so French Canada. They

18:08

have something which is, I don't

18:11

know, really what I'm saying here, but it seems

18:13

to me they have something that is very distinctly

18:15

French Canadian about what they do, which I

18:18

hear in other music from the same

18:20

region, including all of their own. They're

18:22

clearly very talented and they've clearly got

18:24

fantastic record collections and yeah, as a

18:26

collective, I think they've put something together

18:28

that's interesting and once more, I

18:31

think what works for them is

18:33

it's the combination. I think Mogwai did

18:35

this as well. Very much. The combination

18:38

of title, artwork, music

18:40

created a world itself. And building, crescendo,

18:42

but Mogwai very good at that too,

18:44

creating sort of euphoric crescendos from slowly

18:47

building and building and building and building.

18:49

Again, I'm possibly putting in Mogwai. Maybe

18:51

this is, you know, I'm unfairly comparing

18:54

things in a way. What

18:56

else do we have this year? We have... God,

18:58

I'm sorry. No, it's okay. You're

19:01

allowed, Tim, you're allowed to... I'm not quite sure whether

19:03

you're God or them, but anyway. There's going to be

19:05

lots of other stuff coming up that we don't like

19:07

either. We

19:09

kind of focus on the stuff we do like so

19:11

far. Yeah, that's true. Yo, Lotengo, and

19:13

then nothing turned itself inside out. I mean, this

19:15

is an example of a band that have never

19:17

done anything for me, Critics

19:20

Darlings, Tastemaker Darlings.

19:23

Listen to it. It's all right. Six

19:27

for all right. I mean, for

19:29

me, it's a little more than all

19:31

right. You know, the cover artwork's fantastic.

19:33

The title's great. And there's some lovely

19:35

pieces, you know, nice use of primitive

19:37

drum machines and

19:39

a few kind of post-rock elements. I

19:41

like the combination. I think I was

19:44

more excited about it at the time

19:46

than I am now. It's one of

19:48

those albums that I bought, liked, re-listened

19:50

to for the show. And it didn't

19:53

grab me in the way that it

19:55

did. Maybe because that vocabulary, again,

19:57

like we're saying with Godspeed, it's been used. elsewhere

20:00

and maybe in a more intense way.

20:02

Possibly even by some of the other bands on

20:05

this list which we'll go through now. So Fevers

20:07

and Mirrors by Bright Eyes came out this year.

20:09

Never heard of it. I've

20:11

got a few Bright Eyes albums I like. I

20:13

don't know this one though to be fair. Mark

20:16

Koselek, our old favorite, released his album of AC-DC

20:18

cover versions this year and

20:20

made it sound like exactly like every other

20:22

Mark Koselek album. Well on, this one he's

20:24

only got three AC-DC covers. The album after

20:26

this he does all the AC-DC covers. Oh

20:28

beg your pardon. There are a couple of

20:30

originals and so on. I've

20:32

got to say I think the

20:35

positive about it was it showed you how

20:37

good the AC-DC songs are. Actually some of

20:39

the lyrics are really good as well. And

20:42

I really do like early Bond Scott

20:44

AC-DC. I think are fantastic and underrated

20:46

band but as much as

20:48

I love radio, that's the first time I've had

20:50

anyone say AC-DC. Yeah what a shame they never

20:54

sold many records. I feel sorry for it. Yeah

20:56

what a shame Back in Black didn't do better

20:58

than it did. I mean for me. That's not

21:00

Bond Scott and that's not a schoolboy era. It

21:03

happens to be their best friend. Anyway I

21:06

don't know is it Mark Koselek album I wasn't

21:08

that impressed. It just seemed a bit casual, a

21:10

bit offhand. No I think this was the beginning

21:12

of Mark Koselek getting into a groove where everything

21:15

he did sounded like almost a parody of himself.

21:18

With a few exceptions though this is a record he's

21:20

made since then I think beautiful but he's very prolific

21:22

and a lot of his music feels like it's by

21:24

the yard these days and this this

21:26

felt like it at the time. Felt like

21:28

a bit by the yard yeah. Eels, Dazes

21:30

of the Galaxy. I've always found Eels really

21:32

interesting. Yeah they are one of those bands where

21:35

there is something vocally, lyrically,

21:37

texturally. There's an intelligence.

21:40

The thing with Eels is it's

21:42

incredibly depressing lyrics with this quite

21:45

joyful music. It's this almost

21:47

cognitive dissonance between the music and the lyrics

21:50

which I kind of like. It works quite

21:52

well. What's his name?

21:54

E isn't it? The main guy. Yeah. Also

21:57

Lamb Chop released a name called

22:00

Nixon. She used to quite enjoy lounge-rops.

22:02

Again, one of those bands I loved

22:04

at the time don't listen to as

22:06

much but I think they have a

22:09

real quirkiness, the sweetness. I think he's

22:11

got such a distinctive voice, Kurt Wagner,

22:13

isn't it? But yeah,

22:15

incredibly distinctive voice, this kind of

22:18

American short stories set to music

22:20

and it sort of fits this

22:23

kind of singer-songwriter, Americana

22:26

post-rock nicely. But yeah, they

22:28

were definitely one of the most distinctive bands in

22:30

that territory. I had the

22:32

drive-in release, Relationship with Command, which was the

22:34

last album they released before they kind of

22:37

fractalised into Sparta and more

22:39

significantly perhaps for us, Mars Volta,

22:41

the Mars Volta, and it

22:43

kind of gives a little bit of a hint

22:45

of what's going to come. Tim, did you want

22:47

to talk about this because I think you mentioned

22:50

when you sent me an email, you want to

22:52

talk about this album by Granddaddy, the software slump.

22:54

I don't know this record, I thought this is

22:56

one where I just let you talk about it.

22:58

Well, I'm not really going to say very much

23:00

about it but I liked it. You know, it was

23:02

a strong album, it's still a strong album. It had

23:04

a bit like, you know, which went to the Sea

23:06

Song that had that kind of beautiful

23:08

melancholy and semi-quality on the Doves

23:10

album. They had something on this

23:13

called the Crystal Lake, which has

23:15

got kind of simple, similar trick

23:17

in that it manages to be

23:19

rousing and semi-accessible but really quite

23:21

bittersweet as well. I mean, my

23:23

issue, it's a strong album but

23:27

it's maybe too much in order of Flaming Lips

23:30

and Mercury Rev and I know you're not as

23:32

much a fan of them as

23:34

I am and I love Flaming Lips and

23:36

Mercury Rev. This doesn't quite operate on the

23:38

same level for me but it's

23:41

a really good album and it shows you what happened

23:43

in the slipstream of the success that, you know, they

23:45

created a bit of a mini industry

23:47

going forward in the way that Radiohead did

23:49

in Britain. And it was very highly rated

23:51

by the usual Tose album. It was a

23:53

major album of the year. Let's

23:56

talk about a couple of artists. I think we can

23:58

talk about them together in a way. They are big favorites

24:00

of mine. Songs

24:03

are Higher and

24:05

Smog, who are essentially, these

24:07

are essentially uh collective identities

24:09

for individuals. So Songs are

24:11

Higher, Jason Molina and Smog

24:13

is Bill Callahan. Come

24:16

from the kind of old folk, old

24:18

country scene, but I think

24:20

the one thing they both have

24:22

in common is they're incredibly dark,

24:24

lyrically incredibly dark. Bill

24:27

Callahan's Smog has more of a black comedy

24:29

going on. In fact there's some lyrics

24:32

on this album from this year, Dongs of Provotion

24:34

is the name of the album, which itself is

24:36

a terrible pun, which gives you an idea. But

24:39

he's obsessed with death and black comedy. One

24:41

of the songs on this album is called Dress Sexy at My

24:43

Funeral. There's a lyric on

24:45

this album I love, without her clothes she looked like

24:47

a leper in the snow. I

24:49

mean this is classic Bill Callahan and

24:52

at the same time we have Songs

24:54

are Higher releasing an album called Ghost Tropic,

24:56

which to me is like the spirit of

24:58

Eden of outsider folk. Yeah. It's a 51

25:01

piece of music which seems to be obsessed with

25:03

the specter of death. It

25:06

has a haunted, tortured quality

25:08

to it. It is

25:10

that sense of outsider musicianship. I don't think either

25:12

of these guys are great singers or great guitar

25:14

players, but there's something with incredible

25:18

integrity about what they do that seems

25:20

to be torn from their

25:22

very being. Maybe I'm imagining this. But

25:25

the fact that Jason Molina died a few

25:27

years after the show, alcoholism tells me a

25:29

lot about his

25:31

state of mind when he was almost

25:33

like a sense of exercising something.

25:35

But the music is reveling in

25:38

its own misery and melancholy, isn't it? And of course

25:40

for that reason alone, I love

25:42

it folks. That won't surprise you. What did you

25:44

feel about these? Well, Bill Callahan has got more

25:46

of a kind of signature voice in the sense

25:49

he's got character. He reminds me a bit of

25:51

Johnny Cash weirdly who had a great album out

25:53

this year. So Will Oldham is a... Yeah. So

25:55

I think there's kind of a nice quality to

25:57

his work and there's more obvious. irony

26:00

and humour at play and what he does.

26:03

Although it was the songs a higher one out

26:05

of those that really got me. I thought Ghost

26:07

Tropic was very beautiful and

26:10

as you say there's one track I think it's the final piece that's

26:12

12 minutes with again

26:15

melotron which seems to be an instrument

26:17

being brought back by everybody this year

26:19

but it's absolutely

26:22

gorgeous and as you see it's kind of it's

26:24

almost like this sweet in

26:26

a sense this sweet of misery

26:30

and I rather like it for that so yeah and he's got

26:32

as you say this kind of he's got a

26:35

more vulnerable he's closer to me he's got the

26:37

high-pitched Neil Young whiny voice Bill Callan's gone what

26:39

as you say more of the sort of John

26:41

Johnny Cash baritone sort of register Jason

26:43

Molina's voice is more the sort of fragile and

26:45

he's more believably broken broken as I was just

26:48

gonna say it's almost like it's the voices on

26:50

the verge of breaking into the air anyway a

26:52

bit like you have with some Neil Young I

26:54

find yeah yeah almost on the verge of breaking

26:57

to tears but again he I don't

26:59

know what kind of state of mind you when you state of mind he

27:01

was in when he wrote this he was an alcoholic the

27:03

spectra of death is never far away no

27:05

and there is a sense I think unlike

27:08

with the Bill Callahan record

27:10

the smog record where there's still

27:12

a sense of the discipline of

27:14

songwriting yeah here the songs

27:16

just rambled don't they I think the

27:18

difference is that Bill Callahan you can

27:21

believe in the confidence in his delivery

27:23

and the quality of songwriting that

27:25

this is a game whereas

27:28

with the songs Ohio this is higher

27:30

this is not a game this is

27:32

real life and I think that's the

27:34

difference you're right that's I feel that

27:36

I do feel that I'm sure Bill

27:38

Callahan writes a lot from from his

27:40

life and stuff but you're right I

27:42

think he has a very wry acerbic

27:44

kind of width there's always a distance

27:47

yeah whereas with Ghost Tropic you feel

27:49

like this guy is seriously in need

27:51

of some counseling and

27:53

and I mean to me I

27:55

don't make the Spirit of Eden comparison lightly

27:58

it almost feels like the Spirit of Eden of

28:00

Eden of sort of outsider

28:02

music. It's rambling, it's not

28:04

obeying any rules and it feels like

28:06

it's almost rent from this very tortured

28:08

place. And it's funny because it's more

28:10

so than, you know, the stuff I

28:12

know that we really like, Gastro del

28:14

Sol and Jim O'Rourke during this period.

28:16

And they had very open references to

28:18

things like Spirit of Eden and Robert

28:21

Wyatt. But this

28:23

is more broken, you know, this is more, again,

28:26

you kind of feel, and I love those, Gastro

28:28

del Sol and O'Rourke albums, especially The Arrangements,

28:31

but you can hear the

28:33

intelligence as they're being made. You can hear

28:35

the thought processes. Intellect, yeah. Whereas with this,

28:37

you just kind of feel this is straight

28:39

to take. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's

28:41

exactly, in fact, this is one of three

28:44

albums he released this year. So he's making

28:46

these albums very quickly. And as

28:48

you say, it sounds like it's just capturing

28:50

a moment. Again, the Neil Young thing. Yeah.

28:53

It sounds like it's capturing a moment in time. And you

28:55

know what, it doesn't matter that there are flaws and there

28:57

are out of tune notes and there are moments when his

28:59

voice breaks because it adds, it does not

29:01

detract, it adds to the

29:03

kind of outsider emotional kick that

29:06

the record... This is it, you know, because

29:08

sometimes they come back to certain vocal

29:10

styles and certain vocalists who can benefit

29:12

from this. So it does not

29:14

mar the work. If anything, it enhances it. Robert Wyatt,

29:17

it does that. Neil Young, it does that. Weirdly,

29:20

not causal. Very good

29:22

reference point, I think, too, for this record. You know, Kozilek,

29:24

he's one of those who... I do know him. I know

29:26

him. Do you know Mark Kozilek? Yeah, I know him. Do

29:28

you know how it'll jump? I do, yeah. No, but anyway,

29:30

Mark Kozilek, when

29:32

he slums it, his

29:34

voice... And I know this was my own voice, isn't

29:36

it? If I slam it in that way, there are

29:39

certain voices where it's there slightly off. They sound awful.

29:41

And so when Kozilek slums it, as he does, I

29:43

think, on this album, it really does, as you say,

29:45

by the yard, kind of just

29:47

sounds wrong. It's like, Mark, go back and re-record

29:50

that. And if I do something

29:52

as well, it's like, go back and re-record it

29:54

or get Melodyne on it straight away, because it's

29:56

going to kill the listener. But

29:58

when you've got Neil Young... doing this or

30:00

Jason Molina doing this or at WYRE. So

30:03

natural. It sounds right. Or Marcy. They're

30:06

out of tuneness. It's part of their

30:08

essential character. Name your own post-punk icon.

30:10

But there are some people who don't

30:12

do it. Where if they're just ever

30:14

so slightly out, it doesn't... It's got

30:16

Walker. If it's got Walker is off,

30:19

you would notice that so much.

30:21

It's not right for the music. So it

30:23

is fragile and it's broken but it really

30:25

works for it.