Killdeer

Note to screen writer
Bambi needs some more pathos
Make 'em cry - killdeer!

Soak

After weeks of drought
Blessed rains soak the parched earth
The green will return

Rattlesnakes by Lloyd Cole

Lloyd Cole - now there’s a name I’ve not heard in a long, long time.

Back in 1984 when I first listened to this album I was a new student at Sheffield University and a hopeless romantic, in the sense that I was hopeless at it. Like Lloyd I would regularly fall in love and imagine scenarios where someone would be impressed by my literary allusions and knowledge of On The Waterfront, before realising that it was unlikely they would be interested in a computer geek with less than perfect skin, and I would go back to studying Pascal (the programming language not the philosopher).

Musically, this jangly guitar pop sounded great on my hifi that I’d blown half my grant money on, and I found that I could still remember all of the words 40 years or more after first hearing them. Lyrically, it's as arch and earnest as you might expect from a university philosophy student who's been listening to a bit too much Bob Dylan, but I definitely related to it at the time. It wasn’t entirely a surprise to find out that Lloyd was also painfully shy and dreaded live shows to the point where he would perform with his back to the audience.

Does it hold up? Nostalgia is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, but I did enjoy the new to me bonus tracks that weren't on my cassette tape copy back in the day. Was it influential? Probably not, but it did have an influence on me, so I’m giving it 4 stars for old times sake.

Lamplight

Driving someone mad
By changing the truth comes from
That old film Lamplight

Power In Numbers by Jurassic 5

This is great stuff - hip hop funky beats, smart samples and powerful lyrics, a world away from the misogynistic violence of gangsta rap. The tracks explore different musical styles along the jazz/funk/rap/electro spectrum but the album as a whole flows beautifully. Reading the wiki also tells me that the album starts with the same bass riff that the previous album ended with, so you could play one after the other in a seamless mix.

The highlight for me was “A Day at the Races” which samples David Axelrod’s Song of Innocence, one of my all time favourite albums, and does it in such a way that in both respects and builds on the original. The a capella track DDT is also a revelation, and not something that you usually hear on hip hip albums, focusing attention on just the vocals and word play.

Dinosaur-tastic!

The Shape of Water by Andrea Camilleri

When Silvio Luparello, a respected local politician is found dead in his car from a heart attack with his trousers down at a local dogging site, Inspector Montalbano is given just 48 hours to investigate the case and hush up any scandal for the sake of his family and the party. On the face of it this is just a sad and sordid tragedy, but as our hero starts pulling at the various threads he suspects that there is more here than meets the eye.

He starts by interviewing the two garbage collectors who discovered the body, finding out that one of them had discovered a distinctive and valuable gold necklace near the scene. They also remember calling Luparello’s personal attorney and political crony Rizzo to ask what should be done and finding him curiously unbothered by the death of his friend and the potential fallout. 

Other things about the case just don’t seem to add up - who was the tall, blonde woman seen leaving the scene and being picked up by a convenient passing car? Why is Rizzo now supporting Luparello’s chief party rival? Why would an apparently cautious married man suddenly decide to risk everything for a sexual liaison in a public place instead of his secluded beach house where he would usually conduct his affairs in private? Are the clues at the scene just too convenient?

‘And Luparello’s case is one of those where things were set up to appear simple.’ ‘When in fact they are complicated?’ ‘Very complicated.’

This novel is set in the fictional Sicilian town of Vigata and the author Camilleri does an excellent job of capturing the atmosphere of small town corruption and decay, with run down factories, prostitution, warring mafia gangs and political croneyism. Inspector Montalbano is the archetypal dogged detective, digging into a case that other people would rather be closed quickly. He calls on friends, fellow officers and sympathetic officials that owe him a favour as the need arises before explaining the denouement twice - the official story, and the sadder and more tragic truth of the matter that Montalbano keeps out of the public record.

‘So you gave yourself a promotion, eh?’ asked Livia after a long silence. ‘From inspector to god – a fourth-rate god, but still a god.’

I enjoyed this, especially the sardonic humour of the inspector himself, as he deals with a very human tragedy.

Joy

I’ve thought about this
And yes, all my books spark joy
Marie can do one

Tea for the Tillerman by Cat Stevens

I’d always thought that Cat Stevens was just another old hippy who struggled with the transition from the 60s into the 70s, but I’m glad that I gave this album a chance. I was also surprised how many of the tracks that I was already familiar with.

There is a lot of wistful longing and introspection here, as he muses on ideas of growing and changing from childhood to adulthood, his relationship with his father, and the state of the world obsessed with materialism at the expense of everything else. It’s easy to see the roots of his spiritual journey here that lead him to Islam and changing his name to Yusef Islam.

He ended leaving music for some time and was caught up in some controversies (that seem to be down to wilful misquoting out of context by tabloids), but it seems that he has returned to his music in recent years, emphasising the peaceful and moderate side of his faith.

What Up Gangsta by 50 Cent

Lasted about a minute before the first n word shortly followed by an h word. Nah, I’m out.

Boisterous

Sunny day, kids at play
Boisterous shouts, ball kicked out
Tears before bedtime

Central Reservation by Beth Orton

I recognized Beth Orton’s name from her work with William Orbit and the Chemical Brothers, where her gorgeous voice counterpoints the electronica to add something special. This album shows that she is equally talented as a songwriter, mostly in a folky, chillout style with a nod to trip hop in the understated production here.

This reminded me of Everything But The Girl in places, and I wasn’t surprised to see that Ben Watt had produced two tracks. The highlight for me was Stars All Seem to Weep which was utterly haunting.

This is very good indeed. I just wish there were more artists like this on this list.

Spiral

Small blue-green planet
Unfashionable end of the
Western spiral arm

Lantern

Checking the price list
A lantern costs twenty gold
Good for dark dungeons

Olympia 64 (Live) by Jacques Brel

Probably the best export from Belgium since waffles, beer and Tintin the Boy Detective! My French is a little (by which I mean a lot) rusty but the drama and emotion in these songs is unmistakeable. I’ve listened twice today and I’m going for a third listen using the auto-translate on my phone to get a better idea of the lyrics.

It’s clear to see the direct line of influence from Brel to Bowie to Scott Walker to Nick Cave and beyond, not just in the covers of his songs but also in the mesmerising performance style.

Chanson-tastic!

Cold Rain

Counting down the days
Until this damned heat subsides
Waiting for cold rain

Rock Bottom by Robert Wyatt

Robert Wyatt very nearly lost his life to the rock and roll lifestyle when he fell from a fourth floor window at a drunken party in 1973. As it was, he ended up breaking his back and being paralyzed from the waist down. He later credited this accident with saving his life as he stopped drinking from that point on. He was also fortunate that he had a circle of supportive friends who helped him adapt his instruments and studio so he could carry on working on this album.

Whether you like this album or not will very much depend on your tolerance for mid 70s progressive rock noodling with reedy vocals and occasional nonsense lyrics. I found it oddly affecting and he certainly has an all star band backing him on this, including Nick Mason, Mike Oldfield, Ivor Cutler and Fred Frith.

I would recommend looking for his version of ‘I’m a Believer’ on Top of the Pops on YouTube. Apparently the BBC producers didn’t want to show him performing in a wheelchair saying that it “was not suitable for family viewing”. Not surprisingly he told them to get lost and went ahead with the song as planned. The result was absolutely joyous.

Robert Wyatt on Top of the Pops

Pack

Dungeon delver's pack
Stuffed with supples, then emptied
To make room for gold

Fire of Love by The Gun Club

OK, this was an interesting one. The opening title track was fairly standard post-punk, but then the second track added some slide guitars and turned out to be a cover of a Robert Johnson blues number, given considerable energy. The rest of the album continued to surprise, mixing blues, roots and punk, putting me in mind of the energy of stripped down Western Swing but with lyrics about sex, heroin and shooting people.

There is one very inadvisable use of the N word, but front man and writer Jeffrey Pierce was mixed race so we can probably let that one slide, as well as waiving the usual caveats about white people playing the blues. There was enough here to keep me listening and also wanting to explore some more of their albums - Patricia Morrison was part of the band later on, as a bass player pre Sisters of Mercy.

Cowpunk-tastic!

It : Chapter Two

Picking up the story 27 years on from the previous film, we now see the members of the Losers Club as adults, each with apparently successful lives on the surface, except for Mike who stayed behind in Derry as a humble librarian. However, it quickly becomes clear that the memories of It are not buried far beneath the surface and they will have to do battle once more.

Picking up on my thoughts about the first chapter, this is one of Stephen Kings more complex novels, and genuinely scary to read. However, the film adaptation suffers from being over literal in the use of CGI and putting the monsters in full view diminishes their effect. One scene in particular struck me as an example of this - one character is revisiting her childhood home, now inhabited by an apparently sweet little old lady. As she digs into the past we catch disturbing glances of the old lady in the background, moving in ways that are just … wrong.

However, the building tension of the scene is shattered by the hilarious appearance from a darkened kitchen of what can only be described as a ten foot tall zombie gollum creature with pendulous breasts lurching around the apartment, smashing up the furniture. Similarly, the final encounter with the It creature feels like a video game boss battle where you have to run around a central arena looking for a hiding place.

The final act also goes on much too long. There is a running joke about the character of Ben, a successful author, being unable to write a good ending, and Stephen King himself makes a cameo appearance as a junk shop owner to acknowledge the point.

Overall, it was OK, but I think that I have got to stop expecting adaptations of King’s works to be anything other than workmanlike.

 

Cricket

A day on the green
A picnic and the gentle sounds
Of village cricket