This Year's List 3/15

Jim O'Rourke made the most perfect album this year. Not perfect in the best songs, the best sound or whatever. For me he made the best produced album this year. It was a long time ago when the former bassman of Sonic Youth made an album like this. There are a lot of reminiscences to many decades of music in it that I couldn't name all. Recorded over almost a half year with Japan-based musicians he recorded Simple Songs. But these songs are everything but simple. Eight songs with guitar, bass, drums, piano and O'Rourke's reserved voice. The songs are generally driven by by guitar and piano but strings, pedal steel, mandolin and horns are all featured prominently. Every instruments has it's place and the songs seems like a complete mosaic.

Jim O'Rourke - Friends With Benefits
Jim O'Rourke - These Hands
Jim O'Rourke - Last Year

This Years List 2/15

Until I saw her live at my birthday I've never heard any words about SOAK. I went to her small concert at the open-air festival expecting nothing more than another good folk-singer. But then she impressed me. Standing alone on the stage with an acoustic guitar that was almost too big for this 18 year old kid from Derry. She stood there like a shy fawn singing her very intimate songs with such a fragile voice I seldom heard. Most of the songs she played she wrote in her youngest days being 13 or 14 years old. Listening to the songs on her album Before We Forget How To Dream it is more electric and filled with little details that wasn't possible to do it on a solo performance. The art of writing her songs reminds me to Joni Mitchell which is also an artist that made a lot of intimate songs. All together a very good debut album between electric guitar folk to be played at the family room with fireplace.

SOAK - B a noBody
SOAK - 24 Widowed House
SOAK - Oh Brother

This Years List 1/15

Working year is almost over and in a few days I will go for a four week vacation to Sri Lanka again. Visiting the places I used to stay during the last years over Christmas and new years time and exploring places I haven't been yet. So you won't have any actual posts until mid of January 2016. During the last weeks I summed up the albums that was released this year and chosen 15 from 2015. It is a very personal selection by records that impressed me much, that accompanied me this year or I listened to often the recent months. This list will not be a valuation of the best records this year, it's just a personal review of albums that stood the test of time for this year. I am not the one that requires that the list is universally valid - it is more a retrospective of albums that was released in 2015 and I still listen to them since I first got my attention and I still listen to them. So in the nearby days I will introduce to you my albums of the year. Be curious what will happen the next days.


A record Julian Cope would love comes from San Francisco based Moon Duo. Guitarist Ripley Johnson and keyboardist Sanae Yamada released Shadow of the Sun early this year. Nine songs with real psychedelia in it. Songs with distorted guitars, weird organ sound and a voices deeply halled. What them make more than an Haight-Ashbury cover is that they have a lot of elements of proto-punk and Krautrock in their sound that makes their sound unique. This records shimmers through many outputs this year and will surely played at my house more times.

Funky Friday

Back then in the early 1980s a New York based band was a little famous for their funky and bass dominated sound. The Bush Tetras combined funk rhythms with dissonant guitar riffs. This was not the music for everyone in these days but in retrospective they were far ahead of the regular music that was played by many bands at this time. They were true to their funk and built a ground for upcoming bands was an similar sound with much more funk in it like Kid Creole. This is still the post-punk sound that nowadays I like to listen to.

The Foreign Correspondent Returns

A few days ago an old friend of mine contact me on the telephone after a long years. He told me that he found some vinyl records in his portfolio that belongs to me. We met for a few drinks and he handed me out 15 albums I borrowed him almost 30 years ago. It was a very nice evening spending time with him telling old stories again and having a good time. One of this records he returned to me was by Ja Ja Ja (yes  yes yes) originally released in 1982 on Ata-Tak-label. It was a band located in Düsseldorf with a female singer, Julie Jigsaw from New York which was one of the first ones that brought Rap into German New Wave. The sound is based on a dominant bass that built a fundament for Julies voice. It is different to listen to this music after almost 30 years but it doesn't lost it's fascination over the years (if only it was a sentimental mood for me).

Ja Ja Ja - Graffiti 'Artist International

Upon The Recommendation Of Martin Again

Another band my brother that is worth to check out is Floating Points, the project of the Manchester based DJ Sam Shepard. He released his first full album a few months ago. It's not that kind of music you listen and say: Hey, that's fantastic. It's more a journey to Shepard's own created cosmos full of electronic sound. Harmonies are not the necessary thing in his sound. He gave it up for a new form of jazzy electronic music. For example Peroration Six that starts slowly and real drums lead us into his cosmos.



This is an older one from Floating Points and it is more bass-oriented jazz-influenced house track.
 

Twanging Tuesday # 89

Once more a song by one of the pioneers in Rockabilly: Johnny Burnette. Train Kept A-Rollin' is one his best known songs with more aggressive guitars and his snatchy singing.