Late Snow

Looking at the forecast
The prospect of late snow is
Very unlikely

Savane by Ali Farka Touré

From his breakthrough record yesterday to his final album, recorded just before his death in 2006 and released posthumously. This is an album full of strangeness and charm, with traditional instruments like the ngoni and calabash alongside guitars and harmonicas and vocals in a mix of languages. You don’t need to understand the words to feel the powerful emotions running through them.

Touré said that he thought this was his best album and who are we to argue? I also read today that in 2004 he became mayor of his home town of Niafunké and spent his own money earned from his music improving the roads, building generators, and installing irrigation and sewage systems. I can’t think of a better legacy to aspire to.

https://album.link/gb/i/1467796046

Swallow

My morning coffee
Still steaming, I take a sip
Savour and swallow

Talking Timbuktu by Ali Farka Touré

When young Ali was growing up in a small village in a remote region of Mali he earned the nickname Farka, which means donkey, because of his stubbornness. He wasn’t allowed to play music for cultural reasons, but he went ahead and made himself an improvised one string guitar from a tin can and a bit of string anyway. He quickly picked up the distinctive sound of the region and earned a reputation as a guitarist of note, learning how to sing in seven different languages too.

Some time in the 60s he heard the music of John Lee Hooker for the first time and wondered how this American musician was playing tunes that sounded like the ones he’d grown up with. He quickly realised that the blues must have been an evolution of the much older traditions that he knew. The instruments and languages may have changed, but the feelings were still the same.

I remember hearing this music on the radio sometime in the 80s on a late night show and was charmed by it, even if I couldn’t understand the words. The American musician Ry Cooder was similarly enchanted and tracked down Touré to make an album with him, bringing the best of both worlds together.

Apparently Touré wasn’t happy with his time in America, calling it a ‘spiritual car park’, and some of that sadness and longing for home can be felt here. It’s still a good place to start listening though and will hopefully lead on to people listening to other albums from this truly remarkable musician.

When I was a child Timbuktu was always a mythical place, as far away from home as it’s possible to be. Perhaps we’ve always had it wrong, and it’s Timbuktu that’s home and we are the ones who are lost?

https://album.link/gb/i/1528519970

The Masquerades of Spring by Ben Aaronovitch

Another short Rivers of London novella, this one being based in prohibition era New York, complete with jazz clubs, mobsters, and lashings of bathtub gin. The protagonist is the Bertie Wooster-esque Augustus “Gussie” Berrycloth-Young, an alumnus of Casterbrook school who has moved to a swanky apartment in New York after pulling one too many pranks knocking off policemen’s helmets with a cheeky spell or two.

In best Woodhousian tradition he is therefore somewhat discombobulated when old school chum Thomas Nightingale turns up unannounced on his doorstep claiming to be investigating the provenance of a certain unusual musical instrument, to whit a magical saxophone that enhances the abilities of anyone who toots it. Crikey, a rum do and no mistake, but what’s a chap to do but lend a hand (and some ready cash when required).

The first part of the story is something of a magical maguffin hunt, but then things become considerably more interesting when certain secrets about Gussie himself and the speakeasies that he frequents come to light. There is a darker undertone to this subplot, dealing with racism and prejudice, and the resolution of the rest of the story is satisfyingly done, with one particular reveal being especially juicy (and I would love to read Peter Grant’s reaction if this tale ever comes to light).

On balance I preferred this one, mainly for the narration of Kobna Holdbrook-Smith who turns out to be a dab hand with switching between his familiar voice of Nightingale, an upper class toff and an array of authentic sounding New York accents. Good stuff, but I’m still waiting for the next full length novel, please and thank you!

Arrival by ABBA

This album comes with almost 50 years of cultural baggage attached, from Alan Partridge to the musical Mama Mia to every wedding disco I’ve ever been to, along with some of the most memorable songs of all time. If you can put that to one side and listen to this with no pre-conceptions then you are in for a treat.

The first thing to say is that this album feels a little like a greatest hits compilation, including ‘Dancing Queen’, ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’, ‘Money, Money, Money’ and ‘Fernando’, but any of the other tracks can justifiably stand alongside these hits. This is immaculately constructed pop, across a variety of genres from cheesy Euro disco to dark cabaret to good old rock ’n’ roll, not forgetting the majestic instrumental title track. The lyrics have an occasional odd turn of phrase (‘Dum dum diddle, to be your fiddle’) which just adds to their quirky Scandinavian charm when sung by Agnetha and Anna-Frid with just a hint of a Swedish accent. 

Eurovision-tastic!

https://album.link/gb/i/1440820126

Crocus

A rare saffron spice
Worth more by weight than gold and
Inkjet cartridges

Gusty / Willows

Sudden gust of wind
Rattling the roof tiles above
The birds wheel and dance

I’m pretty sure that
Gusty Willows batted for
Notts in the thirties

Nirvana

Hey, remember when
Nirvanna the Band the Show
Updated their Wii?

https://youtu.be/B_qnI1WrlnU

Fulfillingness' First Finale by Stevie Wonder

This album falls between Innervisions and Songs in the Key of Life and is sometimes an overlooked part of Stevie Wonder’s classic period. Perhaps the problem is that there is just too much good Stevie Wonder to listen to? This was his 17th album and the fourth out of arguably five of the best albums ever made.

There are no well known hits here (with just one number one single), just consistently great tunes in a unique progressive soul style. We have heartfelt love songs (Too Shy to Say) leading into lovely, squelchy boogie rhythms (Boogie On Reggae Woman) and it all flows perfectly. There’s a down tempo number about Creepin’ into someone’s dreams (with backing vocals from Minnie Ripperton!) that segues into a blistering funk attack on the moribund Nixon administration (with backing vocals from the Jackson Five!).

This is a great way to spend a Friday - I’ve listened to this twice in a row, and I’m just about to put it on again! Why not join me?

https://album.link/gb/i/1440739627

Full Moon

Look up in wonder
To think that we walked on the
Face of the full moon

Of slaver mobs and falling hobbs

Sibbill tried to persuade the guards that we were on their side and they escorted us to their Ferret Hall assuming that we were new recruits. We were introduced to their leader Mihiniver who seemed like a nasty piece of work despite his friendly countenance.

We casually moved out of the hall and then Sibbill cast Blood Rage provoking them to fight each other. Chaos ensued! The first group were swiftly dealt with in the confusion, some of them killing each other and the rest being killed by us. Angor finished off the vile Mihiniver with some satisfaction.

We weren't out of the woods - three more large groups of slavers appeared, advancing towards us. Angor was determined to fight the slavers come what may. Sibbill cast fear on him to get him to run away with the rest of us.

We made a tactical retreat, abseiling down the rope, the only one failing being Boldo who slipped and fell. Ochs braced himself and caught the falling halfling. 

Winter’s Gifts by Ben Aaronovitch

When a call from a former FBI agent comes in using the code phrase “X-Ray Sierra India” it goes straight to the desk of agent Kimberley Reynolds who has been tasked with any case with “unusual characteristics” or as her British police counterparts would put it “weird bollocks”.

Reynolds is despatched to Eloise, Wisconsin - a small town on the shores of Lake Superior, frozen in the middle of an unusually violent ice storm. The former agent is now missing, apparently kidnapped by unidentified individuals who may or may not have had “horns and snouts”. The game is now, as they say, afoot.

This is a short novella with a straight to the point plot. It’s not really a spoiler to say that events unfold in the best X-Files tradition with a dogged agent putting the clues together by investigating the past history of a place and linking it to the present. This being America, there are quite a few more guns in the story than the traditional Rivers of London setting, but it’s enjoyable all the same and left me wanting to read more about Agent Reynolds, hopefully in a full length story sometime soon.

The audiobook of this is narrated by Penelope Rawlins, who does a great job, even managing a reasonable London accent for a brief cameo appearance from Peter Grant. 

Azalea

Azalea sounds
Like the name of someone posh
At a tennis club

Elastica by Elastica

In one of those odd coincidences that this list throws up, today’s album is from Elastica who were fronted by Justine Frischmann who was half of a Britpop power couple with Damon Albarn and thus indirectly responsible for him writing two of the most self pitying and mawkish breakup songs of all time when they inevitably split up.

Anyhoo, as the saying goes this album is both good and original. However, the parts that are good aren’t original and vice versa. Albarn makes a guest appearance on this on a couple of tracks and was caught out shamelessly ripping off a riff from Wire on the track Connection. The non-Albarn tracks are a bit better, but there are clear similarities to the New York punk sound of the Ramones and especially Blondie on the track Vaseline.

As with Blur, I really wanted to like this, but in the end it swung and missed for me.

https://album.link/gb/i/1537947271