As you might expect of a book about Leonard Cohen, Sylvie Simmons spends a fair proportion of I’m Your Man writing about love, faith, depression, finance, and the demands and consolations of poetry and women. Mostly, though, the focus of this hefty and thorough book is Leonard Cohen’s charm: about how an exceptionally gifted artist has seduced most everyone who has come into contact with him, through the course of an uncommonly eventful life.
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If you've ever suspected that Brian Eno's enduring reputation as an avant-garde genius is more mythical than actual, his discography from the past few years makes for a satisfying read.
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That pretending-not-to-be-annoyed-by-the-Mercurys morning of the year. But as way of distraction, here’s this week’s rather late office playlist.
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As the first song of Jessica Pratt’s first album begins, you could be forgiven for believing it was a private press folk album from the early ‘70s. The work of a lost canyon comrade of Linda Perhacs, perhaps, or the implausibly lovely efforts of a “Blue” disciple from some one-horse town in the mid-west.
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Usual excuses about too much work to do (currently: a forthcoming Ultimate Music Guide on The Kinks, and the dark mathematics of Uncut’s end-of-year charts, as well as the rest of the next issue) mean that I failed yesterday to write a review of the Six Organs Of Admittance show at Birthdays in Dalston.
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A couple of weeks ago, I read an interview with Scott Litt about working on “Tempest”, in which he mentioned how Dylan’s voice now reminded him, positively, of Louis Armstrong. Dylan, Litt suggested, should have a go at “Hello Dolly” sometime (The full piece is stuck behind the paywall at http://www.newyorker.com/, unfortunately).
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Neil Young is not, at a guess, an artist who suffers much from writer’s block. In the past few years, many of his albums have felt like spontaneous dispatches from an over-productive mind.
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