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Soundtracks Of Our Lives w/e 10 January 2010 CE
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Popel Vooje
5373 posts

Edited Jan 10, 2010, 23:04
Re: Soundtracks Of Our Lives w/e 10 January 2010 CE
Jan 10, 2010, 18:45
Real Estate - Real Estate
Neither stripe-suited harbingers of the neo-yuppie attitudes that look depressingly likely to predominate during the upcoming decade, nor anything to do with Seattle band Sunny Day Real Estate. This is a lo-fi indie four-piece from New Jersey who straddle the gap between post-rock expansiveness and song-based accessibility in much the same way as early Pavement (albeit without the annoying self-consciousness) or Jim O'Rourke's "Insignificance", only with the feel of a band rather than a multi-instrumentalist solo auteur.

Yeah Yeah Noh - Leicester Square (The Best Of...)
One of the 80s' most underrated bands, pitched somewhere between the spiky post-punk humour of the Nightingales ("social surrealism", as I believe the NME termed it back then) and the jangly bedsit melancholia of the Loft, but with greater songwriting skills than either. Not only that, their singer was even kind enough to post on HH thanking me for the review I wrote of this compo on Unsung.

Television Personalities - Privelege
Much more slickly produced than their early Whaam! albums (not that that's saying a great deal), but in this case the songs surprisingly benefit from being recorded on a budget of more than £30 (whatever Dan Treacy might think). Particular highlights are "Paradise is For The Blessed", "The Man Who Paints The Rainbows" and "Engine Driver Song".

The Loft - Once Round the Fair
Astute readers may have noticed a preponderance of the kind of jangly 80s indiepop that was (un)popular during my teenage years in my entry for this week so far, but in case anyone starts to get clever, I had my mid-life crisis when I was 20.

The Fall - The Unutterable
For sure, they've released so many albums now that only a monomaniacal obsessive would want to own them all (not to mention all the dodgy grey-market issues of out-takes and live shows which, if piled up on top of each other, would probably reach even higher than Willie Nelson's mountain of outstanding IRS bills), but this is a diamond in the dust which stands out from all of their post "Infotainment Scan" releases, and which they haven't topped since.

Sonic Youth - Goo
Haven't listened this for a long long time until this week , but it still resonates - if not quite as ground-breaking as it's predecessor "Daydream nation" it's certainly better than the ill-advised flirtations with grunge ("Dirty") and lo-fi ("Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star") that followed it.

Speed, Glue & Shinki - Eve
I know Julian raved about this in "Japrocksampler" but I've played it three times since I bought it and it hasn't made that much of an impression on me so far. With the exception of the superb - and totally atypical - acoustic reverie "Someday We'll All Fall Down" it sounds like a groovy but fairly insubstantial Asian take on the power-trio format pioneered by the Hendrix Experience, Blue Cheer and Cream (but then I never much cared for Cream either...). I'm willing to grant that it may be a slow-burner, though, so I'll give it a few more plays before I give up on it.

Over and out. Or over and in, seeing as it's too bloody cold to be out anywhere after sunrise. Back to the hot water bottle and the Night Nurse for me.
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