Over The Rhine: The Long Surrender

Well, what d'ya know, a new long-playing record from Linford and Karin?

Go here and click the record player to give it a listen.

Here Comes The Rain Again (Hall & Stewart)

Risen

A (fairly) new album by the Sovereign Grace Music folks is available for listening on Spotify.

one of the best albums of 2010

imho, of course

hear it here.

friday night spotify: dazzle ships

Having enjoyed the duet with The Masked Badger on 'Great Albums...', here's something a bit different and worth a listen: the commercial failure that was OMD's fourth album, Dazzle Ships.

It's quirky but tuneful.

Welcome back, 1983; we missed ya.

the great albums (xv) - rumours

So, the last great album in my list - what a lot of fun this has been. There are so many others that ought to have been on here but Spotify isn't playing ball - Blood on the Tracks (Dylan); Blue (Joni Mitchell) and many Beatles albums, for example. Others are near misses - Plastic Ono Band (Lennon); Achtung, Baby (U2) spring to mind.

But I'm opting to include - for all the reasons given in the Spotify review - the all-time high-point for Fleetwood Mac. Some would even say that Rumours in the high-point of all AOR and I wouldn't take them to task if they did.

Full of tension and tunes, it deserves every accolade it ever received. It was in the album charts for years and crept up on me in late '84/early '85. Maybe it tails off towards the end but that would be entirely in keeping with all that it's handling.

Finally: enjoy!

the blue nile

Only 4 albums in 26 years (so far). And, as far as I can see, no vast reservoir of bootlegs to expand the canon. Which means that in The Blue Nile you have a band that is manageable; compassed and defined. But the music on those 4 albums just won't be constrained: its emotional range and musical delicacy defies you to try.


Well I, for one, won't.


A Walk Across The Rooftops
Hats
Peace At Last
High

judee sill: the kiss (OGWT)

emmylou harris: pancho & lefty (OGWT 1977)

saturday night spotify: the gabe dixon band

Well, indeed: who? It's funny how a search for one artist (in this case, Mindy Smith) leads to the discovery of another (The Gabe Dixon Band). It's not country but it isn't non-country; it's rock but neither soft nor otherwise. It's a little bluegrass, a little not. You need to give it a listen to get it.


And, yes, Mindy's on there for one song, the lovely Further The Sky.

mary chapin carpenter: i have a need for solitude

ebtg: acoustic

Ben & Tracey: thank you so much, for so much, over so many years. And now I find this on spotify - an unexpected, joyous gift.

I have to say, I never expected to hear EBTG singing Springsteen (Tougher Than the Rest is on here) but it works amazingly well.


All in all: delightful!

nichole nordeman: brave

Brave is a gently rocky, poppish album with some lyrical depth & substance. You might want to give it a listen.

friday night spotify: sound affects

The Jam's penultimate album and from the height of their popularity and prowess. The only shame is it didn't include the single, Going Underground, from a few months earlier - possibly their best moment ever.

sons of korah: psalm 23

gentle; uplifting; healing

is the album, The Breaking of the Dawn, by Fernando Ortega.


You'll not regret giving it a listen.

depeche mode: violator

I remember their arrival onto the New Romantic/synth pop scene of 1981; they were duly poppy and synthy. Then Vince Clarke left (for the glories of Yazoo) and, whilst they continued to figure in the charts, I never took them seriously. Then it sounded like they went all dark and strange and - well, who needs that?


But they've lasted and often to great acclaim. So I've decided to give a listen to one of their most vaunted albums, Violator.


And I have to say it's rather good - yes, dark & strange it is but with a certain something that demands a more sustained hearing.

But their own original version of Personal Jesus isn't a patch on Johnny Cash's version.

resurrection letters

A nice album by Andrew Peterson (a group, not a guy - although the group contains a guy called...Andrew Peterson).


Anyway, you might like to listen to Resurrection Letters Volume 2.

friday night spotify: ultravox - the collection

Some bands were always better in single doses and, for me, Ultravox were always in that category. But when you stack the singles up alongside each other, they make for a great album. So here's The Collection - enjoy.

ono: nobody sees me like you do

I wanna quit moving
I wanna quit running
I wanna relax and be tender
I wanna see us, together again,
rocking away in our walnut chairs

(from the album Season Of Glass, 1981)