Category Archives: Jazz

Listmania ’11! Music Round-Up

Posted on by

This post wasn’t supposed to happen. This year has been spent writing, not for the blog but for a higher purpose, and I’ve found that the perfect accompaniment is jazz. As a result the majority of the year has been spent blissed out listening to classics like No Room for Squares by Hank Mobley, Straight Life by Freddie Hubbard, Mingus at Carnegie Hall, The Sidewinder by Lee Morgan, Bill Evans live at the Village Vanguard, and many many more. As a result I don’t think I listened to anything from 2011 until August, fully expecting to go a whole year without bothering with anything modern. The long delay meant I went on a rampage. It was around then that I heard my number one album of the year, and everything else released this year has been eclipsed by it.

When I say it’s my number one album I’m not even scratching the surface of how how much I love it, how much it has come to mean to me. The last album that shook me up that much was Joanna Newsome’s Ys; another ambitious project that transcended the concept of the album. The discovery of this towering achievement has more than made up for some disappointments, most notably the kinda boring Parallax by Atlas Sound (a shame considering Bradford Cox is coming off the triple whammy of Microcastle, Logos and Halcyon Digest) and the way-too-short The King of Limbs. I can see that Radiohead are experimenting with new delivery systems and song-delivery systems, but even with the supplementary release of Supercollider/The Butcher, the way in which the album was distributed to fans was more exciting than the album itself.

Other than that the year was good enough, I guess. Frustratingly two of the year’s highlights — Undun by The Roots and Days by Real Estate — came out so late that I’ve not had time to fully appreciate them. This happened last year with Kanye’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, which I only listened to seven times before making my list, and then listened to about 70000 times in the next three months. Amazing stuff. I hope that happens with Undun and Days too. I’m really pleased at how lovable Days is, after giving Real Estate’s previous, eponymous album an award for Best Debut. That was good; Days is magnificent. A little sample is included below, among many many others.

Best Albums:

15. Gutter Rainbows – Talib Kweli

14. Wolfroy Comes To Town – Bonnie “Prince” Billy

13. Undun – The Roots

12. Mountaintops – Mates of State

11. Tomboy – Panda Bear

10. James Blake – James Blake

9. Mirror Traffic – Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks

8. Slave Ambient – The War on Drugs

7. Bon Iver – Bon Iver

6. Watch The Throne – Jay-Z and Kanye West

5. Days – Real Estate

4. We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves – John Maus

3. Let England Shake – PJ Harvey

2. Smoke Ring For My Halo – Kurt Vile

1. David Comes To Life – Fucked Up

Most Essential Free-To-Download Mash-Up Album of the Year, If Not All Time: 13 Chambers – Wugazi

Best Album I Only Listened To Because It Was Nominated In The “Token Jazz Album” Slot In The Mercury Music Prize And Turned Out To Be A Bit Of A Cracker: Good Days At Schloss Elmau – Gwilym Simcock

Album I’m Kinda Resisting Now Despite All Of The Pitchfork Fapping But May End Up Loving Eventually If I Can Ever Get A Bead On It: Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming – M83:

Best EP: So Outta Reach – Kurt Vile

Best Singles

10. Honey Bunny – Girls

9. Broken Record – Katy B

8. Midnight City – M83

7. The Wilhelm Scream – James Blake

6. Lift Off – Jay-Z, Kanye West and Beyonce

5. Getting Nowhere – Magnetic Man (feat. John Legend)

4. Supercollider – Radiohead

3. The Glorious Land – PJ Harvey

2. A Little Death – Fucked Up

1. Holocene – Bon Iver

Best Album Tracks

10. Kool On – The Roots (feat. Greg Porn & Truck North)

9. Soft – Washed Out

8. The Shakes – Atlas Sound

7. Ain’t Waiting – Talib Kweli (feat. Outasight)

6. Stick Figures in Love – Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks

5. Tomboy – Panda Bear

4. Three Blocks – Real Estate

3. Maracas – Mates of State

2. Peeping Tomboy – Kurt Vile

1. Serve Me Right – Fucked Up

Best Video: Lotus Flower – Radiohead

Best Star Cameos in a Video For a Song Featuring The Word “Blowjob”: Jack Black, Gary Cole and Maria Thayer in Senator by Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks

Most Confounding Earworm Lyric Featuring A Questionable Slang Word For A Lady’s Private Bits: Matter of Fact – John Maus

Best Album Tracks That Should Have Made It Onto This Year’s Best Album Tracks List But Sadly Both Featured On An EP Last Year And Thus Are In Contravention Of My Arbitrary Rules But Here’s The Videos For Them Anyway Because They’re Amazing, Really Seriously They’re So Amazing You Have To Watch Them Right Now: Baby Missiles and Come To the City- The War On Drugs

Best Opening Track: Perth – Bon Iver

Best Closing Track: Believer – John Maus

Most Valuable Player of 2011: Kurt Vile

So that’s 2011, a year dominated by a shouty man and an absurdly overcomplicated narrative about terrorism and love beyond death, eclipsing even the discovery of Kurt Vile, who I’d never heard before this year. If you haven’t heard Fucked Up’s David Comes To Life yet you can sample the whole thing on YouTube. Pretty much every tune on it could’ve found its way onto one of these lists; the richness and complexity of it is breathtaking, and that’s even before we get to the seemingly infinite multitude of hooks. Everything here is recommended, of course, but if you’ve missed out on Fucked Up (or Kurt Vile, or John Maus), your year in music is incomplete. Trust, bruv.

A Sad Day For Jazz Lovers

Posted on by

It’s been one of those days where nothing much happens, when everything gets swallowed up with chores and work and flagellating yourself on a treadmill just to lose a few stone here and there. Oh, and I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, working out is never a good idea while watching someone as odious as George W. Bush talks about world events like a kid who hasn’t done his homework, and then being pressured by teachers to explain what he knows about a subject and relying on repetition of a single word over and over again as if that gets him off the hook. His brand of idiotic belligerence and barely concealed hysteria made me do three kilometers more than I expected, and I spent the rest of the day in an exhausted and miserable fugue state.

Anyway, the one thing that did happen today was not welcome at all. One of the music world’s most innovative composers, Swedish jazz pianist Esbjörn Svensson, died today in a tragic diving accident, at the age of 44. I was recently introduced to his music by a colleague, and was beginning to grow enormously fond of his work, which was jazz if played by very aggressive avant-garde hipsters. That sounds like I’m making fun of his work, but I’m definitely not. The album I’ve spent the most time with, EST plays Monk, is exhilarating stuff, using not only Svensson’s piano to adapt Thelonious Monk’s uniquely percussive keyboards, but also attacking Monk’s work with the double bass and drums of Esbjörn Svensson Trio cohorts Dan Berglund and Magnus Öström. It’s a strange way to rework those classic Monk tunes, but it works beautifully.

I’m sad I’ve only just learned of his talent, just as he has passed on, but for now I can enjoy what he has left us. Here is a Last FM page with some Esbjörn Svensson Trio tunes, and here is a live performance of Dodge The Dodo from the album From Gagarin’s Point of View.

My condolences to his family, friends, and fellow musicians.

Pop Culture Will Fight Itself (2)

Posted on by

Who would win this head-to-head match? Tron…


…or Jericho “Action” Jackson?


Tron lives inside a crazy and beautiful computer world designed by the incredible Moebius and the equally incredible Syd Mead.


Action Jackson comes from Detroit.


Tron gets around on a Light Cycle that does wicked 90 degree turns.


Action Jackson is such an incredible athlete he can chase a cab, leap onto it, hold on while being shot at and, after falling off, leap over it as it attempts to run him over.


Tron is accompanied by a very beautiful and dynamic soundtrack written by synth ace Wendy Carlos, with extra songs by Journey.


Action Jackson doesn’t go anywhere without a funky and exciting soundtrack by Michael Kamen and Jazz God Herbie Hancock (seriously, have you heard Headhunters?), with the odd Pointer Sisters song thrown in for good measure.


Tron fights with a glowing frisbee that will de-rez any enemies.


Action Jackson uses his mighty fists, which are especially powerful when used with some taunting.


Tron’s nemesis is the dastardly security program Sark, played by super-evil David Warner, here seen playing a game of Pac Man.


Action Jackson’s nemesis is car-builder Peter Dellaplane, played by the normally likeable Craig T. Nelson, who uses karate to even the odds against our hero, plus the odd bit of bondage. Don’t worry, Jackson kicks his ass later!


When Tron takes Sark down, this is the send-off dialogue:

Sark: You certainly are persistant, Tron.
Tron: I’m also better than you!

When Action Jackson is about to kick Dellaplane’s ass after being kicked through a car window (a car that is sitting in Dellaplane’s bedroom; long story), Jackson’s send-off line is:

NOW YOU PISSED ME OFF!

Tron was played by Bruce Boxleitner. He’s pretty bad in this, though he does better than in Babylon 5, where I struggled to take him seriously (though there were far far worse actors on that frustrating show). It’s also kinda weird that the lead in the movie Tron isn’t Boxleitner, but Jeff Bridges, who plays a hacker who meets Tron inside a computer. I guess if you’re making a sci-fi version of The Wizard of Oz, the marketing department is probably going to sniff at the name Kevin.

Action Jackson is played by Carl Weathers, who is awesome in the Rocky movies and Predator, and his appearance on Arrested Development became one of the defining images in our current TV Golden Age. We will be forever grateful.


So, who will win this impossible fight? You decide!!!

SPECIAL BONUS POLL!

Who is your favourite new character on Lost?

EXTRA SPECIAL BONUS POLL!

Who is your least favourite character (i.e. your nominee for Show Gupta) on wacky sci-fi comedy Torchwood?