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Wednesday 1 June 2011

May Music Purchases

Maxwell – Black Summers Night A Nu-Soul star with an old soul voice, Maxwell has an amazing voice and range that reminds me somewhat of Marvin Gaye. He has consistently released good albums, and this was his last released in 2009. He has previously covered This Woman’s Work By Kate Bush, and announced prior to singing it on MTV Unplugged that see “was the bomb” can’t really argue with that!


Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues Along with Radiohead and Elbow this rates on my list of ‘highly anticipated releases that had to be purchased of the day of release', and it hasn’t disappointed. On first listen I would say it surpasses their debut, which I thought was amazing. 


Jane Taylor – Live At St Georges 2010 I was Jane last month and bought this CD on the promise that she would send it in the post. I arrived this week, in a brown card sleeve with hand draw picture on the front and track listings on the back, guessing this is a real cottage industry! The music is beautiful as ever and I would recommend if you don’t know much about Jane Taylor that you look her up.



Agnes Obel – Philharmonics Bought on the recommendation of twitter buddy @bongbrummie nice album from an artist I wasn’t aware of and on first listen, it's really good stuff.


David Sylvian – Live In Concert 6 CD bootleg that covers 4 concerts from 1981, 1988, 1993, and 2002. Bought on eBay you never know what you will get with bootlegs but this appears to be pretty good quality apart from the odd blunt ending to a couple of songs. I really admire Davis Sylvian and this spans his career, the first concert is of the band Japan and there are 2 solo concerts and a further concert with Robert Fripp. Going to take a while to fully immerse myself in this but I can’t wait.

Wild Beasts – Smother 3rd album from the Kendal four piece, sounds like everything that was good about the 80’s with a modern feel to it. The ghost of Billy McKenzie will be looking down, listening and smiling.


Kinks – The Singles Collection I have always allowed an intense dislike of Ray Davies cloud my judgement with regard to the Kinks; I don’t know why I don’t like him, (I don’t know him) but he always comes across as a bit of a arrogant knob in interviews. So here I am 45 years old buying my first Kinks album I’ll let you know how I get on!

Transistor – Self Titled I know nothing about this other than it was another vehicle for the wonderful talent that is Gary Clark. After Danny Wilson split, Gary recorded a wonderful solo album then a recorded with members of The Bible as King L, the brilliant album Great Day For Gravity was sadly overlooked, (saw the name fast and you might understand why!) I only found out about this album recently even though it was released some time ago. Hoping it’s as good as all his other stuff.

William Orbit – Pieces In A Modern Style Replacing an album I had on Mini disc (have been talking about the demise of the mini disc on twitter) classical pieces given a modern makeover.  I’m a bit of a heathen when it comes to classical music but this I like.

Beth Orton – Central Reservation I have Trailer Park  which has the lovely She Cries Your Name on it, this has Ben Harper, and Dr John making guest appearances so sure I’m going to like it.

The Reindeer Section - Son Of Evil Reindeer Side project of  Gary Lightbody. I like Snow Patrol so with the last 2 mentioned albums I bought this (3 for £5) let’s hope it’s good.



Sufjan Stevens – Michigan and The BQE bought after seeing Sufjan at The Sage Gateshead,  The BQE album comes with a CD/DVD/ and also 3D ‘StereoScopic ‘ viewfnder thing you used to have when you were a kid! I thought I had Michigan but realised I hadn’t and in a giddy state after the gig starting throwing money at the merch stand. I posted some photo's of the gig at http://www.flickr.com/photos/58452315@N08/


Sleepingdog – With Our Heads In The Clouds And Our Hearts In The Fields  I saw this band supporting Low amazing performance from a US/Belgium duo,they play minimal atmospheric music that blew my mind live and on first listen to the CD it's still doing it now!


Young The Giant – Self Titled They were on Later a few weeks back and sounded interesting, album is nice nothing new but they do it well, well crafted guitar based tunes that sometimes sound like Paolo Nutini singing Kings of Leon and I mean that in a good way!



Looking at the number of purchases I made in May I thought I wouldn't buy any music in June, so it's the 1st June and I have just bought 9 CDs in HMV for £28 (how could you refuse at that price!) You'll have to wait until next month to find out what I've bought.

1 comment:

  1. Love the Kinks - got it on in the car at the moment. Cracking guitars and vocals.

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