Sad news this morning, with the announcement of Dory Previn’s death at the age of 86. The first thing I came across this morning at home was a useful comp from a few years back, “The Art Of Dory Previn”, which works well as a primer to this eccentric, wise and mostly undervalued singer-songwriter.
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A quick video to carry us through the weekend. I've been playing the new Starving Weirdos album, "Land Lines", for a few weeks now.
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I was playing a new record the other day that was, to all intensive purposes, mediocre American indie-rock; maybe with a touch of mediocre American post-rock. Uneventful enough, you might imagine, except for the fact that a constant barrage of overcomplicated arrangements – shooting for some kind of avant-garde audacity, I guess - made it actively annoying rather than merely nondescript.
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Trying hard to disregard the fact that one record here has possibly irritated me more than anything I’ve played for a while, another nice list this week. Second Jack White track out is another keeper, and the Ililta! 12, especially, is really growing on me.
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A strange night at St Giles-In-The-Fields with Tim Hecker, which turned out to be something more like a real-time sound installation rather than a concert. This, I guess, is not a new problem with organ recitals: Hecker is sat in the organ loft, playing the church’s venerable instrument while the audience sit below, with their backs to him, in complete darkness, looking at the altar, and the silhouettes of two large speaker stacks.
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For the past couple of years, I’ve been writing a Wild Mercury Sound column in the print edition of Uncut; a slightly awkward thing that I’m genuinely happy to be done with.
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A bit of a misunderstanding with regard to this album from Hush Arbors and Arbouretum, “Aureola”, which at first looked to be a collaboration between two acts I’ve written a fair amount about over the years.
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Lots of goodness in the playlist this week, but before we get there, a quick heads-up for the new issue of Uncut which should be out about now.
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There is a fairly telling moment, about three-quarters of the way through this mostly excellent night of three guitarists, at the Lexington, between the Angel and King’s Cross.
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Late Saturday afternoon, I was sat at the computer checking football scores when I received an email from Mark Golley, as passionate and assiduous a Neil Young fan as I’ve ever come across. “Check out the front page of neilyoung.com,” it advised.
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