This week’s bored-with-football-hype blues:
Uriah Heep ‘Salisbury’ - Heep’s sophomore release isn’t as good as their first or third LPs but has a few fine tracks anyway. Maybe I need to listen a little closer to this one;
John Martyn ‘Live At Leeds’ - the thirteen minute take on ‘Outside In’ included here is simply sublime;
XTC ‘Go 2’ - my newly-submitted Unsung comments refer;
Blood, Sweat & Tears ‘3’ - brassy jazz pop from the masters of their (admittedly narrow) genre, featuring David Clayton Thomas on top vocal form;
Barclay James Harvest ‘Gone To Earth’ - where BJH upped their energy quotient (well, a bit) in the year of punk. Seriously, a very decent LP;
Steven Wilson ‘The Future Bites’ - which is not just clever but musically satisfying - not always a combination I’ve experienced with its omnipresent protagonist;
Bauhaus ‘In The Flat Field’ - their debut was their most atonal and original statement, capturing Bauhaus at their bleak peak before commercial success blunted their edge. ‘Nerves’ features the best riff Tony Iommi never wrote;
Talk Talk ‘The Colour Of Spring’ - the first LP to exhibit a taste of Mark Hollis’ abstract sensitivities. Even the dated “big” drums don’t detract from this record’s beauty;
AC/DC ‘Let There Be Rock’ - oh, ok then, if there indeed must;
Opeth ‘Children Of The Titans’ - monumentally heavy sounds from Sweden’s long-established prog masters, captured in rude live form a couple of years ago;
Haydn: String Quartets Op.71 (Angeles Quartet) - three wonderful, varied quartets sensitively performed in a slightly over-reverberant acoustic;
Mozart: Piano Concerto no.20 (Stephen Kovacevich/LSO/Sir Colin Davis) - one of Mozart’s most dramatic concertos given a duly serious reading here;
Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique (LSO/Colin Davis) - and Davis’ first take on Berlioz’s trippy masterpiece is equally stern, though not lacking in excitement;
Beethoven: Symphony no.3 (Cleveland/Lorin Maazel) - a straight down the middle ‘Eroica’ from Maazel, but none the worse for that;
Beethoven: Piano
Concerto no.4 (Walter Gieseking/Saxon State Orch/Karl Boehm) - pre-war German recording delightfully paced.
Let there be sound.
Dave x
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