This week’s waiting to die blues:
Pink Floyd ‘Atom Heart Mother’ - a rare example of successful fusion between rock and classical forms that stands alone in Pink Floyd’s canon. I’ve always rather dug this. Side Two is patchier, but ‘Summer ‘68’ and ‘Fat Old Sun’ are baroque pop masterpieces;
The Beatles ‘Please Please Me’ - it’s sobering to think what was still to follow this, but taken on its own terms this is still an impressive debut;
Paul Weller ‘Cosmic Fringes’ - this taster from Weller’s forthcoming album reveals a poppier edge and a quite different vocal technique on the Modfather’s part;
Van Morrison ‘Latest Record Project’ - another new album taster sees our grumpy hero in smiling mode. Well, almost;
Altered Images ‘Pinky Blue’ - the unbroken major key tweeness of this wears a little thin, but this does take me back to happier days before lousy personal judgement, self-imposed serious illness and professional failure fucked my life up;
Rory Gallagher ‘Rory Gallagher’ - his first solo LP from 1971 is a personal favourite, encompassing all aspects of the great man’s art;
Yes ‘Union’ - after gathering dust in my racks for thirty years, I played this to see if it really was as bad as I’d deemed it on release. And you know what - it’s quite a lot better than I remembered, especially (most of) the AWBH tracks which manage to sound decent despite an awful, overdone production job. The Rabin (i.e. “Yes West”)
tracks sound more dated, but are really no more than tarted up demos. ‘Onion’ (Rick Wakeman’s term) is too long, and is clearly a product of two disparate combos but… it’s okay. No classic, just okay. Think I might pass on the upcoming 30CD (!) box set of its accompanying tour, though;
Yes ‘Yes’ - no excuses needed for this one: it’s a belter of a debut - one helluva feel good album with energy, youthful verve, great writing and wholly original takes on two Beatles and B Springfield songs. The original line up had so much going for them. Peter Banks & Chris Squire RIP;
Echo and the Bunnymen ‘Crocodiles’ - like ‘Kilimanjaro’ (which it seems to resemble more with the passage of time) one of the great debut albums of the post-punk era;
Deep Purple ‘Purple Passages’ - representative US compilation of Mk.1 line up;
Julian Cope ‘Revolutionary Suicide’ - just severely freakin’ entertaining. End of;
Caravan ‘For Girls Who Grow Plump In The Night’ - Caravan’s fifth LP saw a harder edged sound than before, aligned to some obscenely catchy songs by Pye Hastings. The closing ‘A Hunting We Shall Go’ medley is truly epic prog at its best. How this wondrous band never achieved rock demigod status is beyond me;
Jethro Tull ‘Benefit’ - a simply perfect album in its original mix;
John Illsley ‘Never Told A Soul’ - 1984 solo debut of Dire Straits’ bassist, sounding a lot less time-locked than most rock albums of the period. Illsley’s voice was a little tame (his larynx has since weathered better) but he penned some decent songs here with, naturally, great playing;
Martin Carthy ‘Classic Carthy’ - CD1 from Free Reed’s ‘Carthy Chronicles’ box set of a while back is a great one-stop shop of some Carthy’s best known songs, mostly in rare versions. I thoroughly enjoyed this;
Keith Jarrett ‘Expectations’ - this early album is a fine sampler of Jarrett’s pianistic talents in a straighter jazz context than many of his ECM dates;
Charlie Parker ‘Savoy Masters’ - Bird at his best, including his earliest small group recordings. Some cuts feature a young
Miles Davis ‘Relaxin’ With The Miles Davis Quintet’ - post-bop/pre-cool jazz from Miles’ underrated Prestige years;
John Abercrombie ‘Gateway’ - great early ECM trio session;
Brahms: Symphony no.2 (VPO/Karl Bohm) -this 1942 set is the most viscerally exciting of Bohm’s recordings of this great symphony;
Beethoven: Symphony no.2 & Richard Rodgers: Carousel Waltz (Pittsburgh SO/Fritz Reiner) - stern yet musical readings by the never genial but ever idiomatic Dr Reiner;
Dvorak: Symphony no.9 (BPO/Herbert von Karajan) - Karajan’s probing interpretation of the New World Symphony was pretty consistent through his career as this 1940 recording makes evident, though the famous Largo seems particularly tender here;
Mozart: String Quartet no.16, K 428 & Beethoven: String Quartet no.3, Op.18 no.3 (Quartetto Italiano) - superbly judged, elegant renderings of two fine classical quartets;
Alfred Cortot ‘Plays Liszt’ - ancient, crumbly recordings of a true piano great, with a few bum notes but boundless artistry to compensate.
Have a good week, all. Dave
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