hey blondie!

I have spent the last few days lying on a stretch of pristine, untouched beach. The weather has been phenomenal; hot and sunny, with a lovely onshore breeze. I have learnt an important lesson about sunscreen placement. I have showered in salt-water, and sharedmy simple seaside cabaña with a friendly metre-long iguana. It's wet season, so at nights (and yes sometimes during the day) you can sit and watch an electrical storm play out over the Caribbean. I am on holiday, and it is amazing.

As I dozed in the sun on the beach yesterday, I listened to Israel Kamakawiwo'ole. It was a stereotypical, easy choice. He is from Hawai'i, but he just sounds tropical - all ukeleles and harmonies. It was relaxing and easy and just what I wanted for my first few days of holiday. If The Ethnomusicologist were here, he'd accuse me of being one of those white middle class people enjoying a middle class holiday and listening to world music. The Ethnomusicologist is not here, and he probably forgets it was him who gave me this album in the first place.

 

Besides, it wasn´t until I´d left beautiful deserted Tulum and made my way back up the coast to Playa del Carmen that I realised how empty, quiet, and non-stereotypical our break in Tulum had been. Playa del Carmen is the exact opposite - it is loud and it is full of people and everyone is shouting "hey blondie!" at me and trying to sell me something - from a sombrero to a hammock (the "matrimonial" hammock, evidently somehow different from the plain "double hammock") to tequila to all sorts of other useless stuff. I have just found out that our next destination has no electricity, so I am trying to buy a torch.... It is, evidently, the one thing not to be bought in Playa del Carmen. So I am destined to be that girl fumbling about in the darkness for the next two days.

 

Traveling Wilburys - Traveling Wilburys Collection (2007)

The supergroup to end all supergroups, Traveling Wilburys is basically a rock n roll hall of fame best of in one band: Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty, and Jeff Lynne. Together they produce some of the most wonderfully whimsical tunes I've heard in a long time. A little bit rock, a little bit folk-pop, a little bit rockabilly - but pure unadulterated joy-in-a-box-set. Listening to the Wilburys, I feel like I've been invited to an exclusive and very high-powered garage jam. The fun is infectious - I challenge anyone to listen to this without feeling a little bit better about life.



These are serious musicians not taking themselves seriously - the result is just music as it should be. Joyful little ditties, light-hearted and frivolous; perfect choice for an otherwise grey Monday morning.

Vampire Weekend - 'Horchata'

I can't get this song out of my head:

Fleet Foxes, Helplessness Blues (2011)

After my rather public battle with Fleet Foxes, I'm a little uncomfortable that this is the first of their albums I've featured on this blog. Their self-titled album is one of my staples - I adore it, but it took me a while to get there. I have only listened to this album once, from start to finish, somewhere above the Northern Pacific. At face value, it's a bit angsty and existenitial and I'm not sure I've seen the growth from their first album, but the quality of songwriting and musicianship remains high. I don't yet own this album - but I will buy it.

I was immediately struck by 'Bedouin Dress' - it incorporates some lovely Americana guitar work; the kind of sound I can't get enough of at the moment. I do not, however, like the mid eastern influence (I don't even know what the instrument is, but, as is becoming my new theme, it's too obvious and borders on annoying.) The obviousness does carry somewhat throughout the album - the melodramatic introduction to 'The Plains / Bitter Dancer' was too much for this jetleg-addled brain. Thankfully, the song mellows into something more mature; the classic layered harmonies, some really interesting and quite striking minor chords, leading into an upbeat bridge. At nearly 6 minutes, this song had the potential to be a bit painful, but despite the overbearing intro, they've managed not to take it too far.

The title track features some bordering-on-contrived lyrics, but in classic FF style, they are somehow balanced out by layered guitars into another very good song. I think the start of this track illustrates FF at their best - their distinct sound, comprised of elaborate guitars and unique vocals. They bring the eastern sound back in the bridge of this song though, and while it is objectively pretty good, part of me wishes they'd left the song at 3 minutes. In contrast, the beginning of 'The Shrine / An Argument' sounds to me like FF as we haven't yet really heard them; there's a real and unmistakable rock influence in there. And it's good. I worried that this 8 minute odessy of a song might weary me, but (as I guess the title would imply) it's broken into two quite distinct and manageable parts. Unfortunately the early, quite surprising rock part is, in my opinion, undermined by the caucophony that commences three quarters of the way through the track, and for which I have little patience this morning.

At first listen, there's no 'White Winter Hymnal' equivalent on this album - the kind of haunting striking song that stays with you long after you've finished listening. That said, I openly acknowledge that I would have said the same thing about the first album after first listen (and for about a year thereafter.) But I love the opening of 'Battery Kinzie', loud, thumping pianos a striking contrast to the dramatic guitar of the previous track. It's a short (under 3 minutes) snappy little track, non-confrontational, perfectly balanced. I also love 'Lorelai' - a beautiful exposition of that perfect, pure voice in a simple format. The same could be said of the following track, 'Someone You'd Admire' - I fell for this track immediately. Likewise the acoustic guitar, disarming vocals, and pretty lyrics of 'Blue Spotted Tail' had me at hello. I am, apparently, a sucker for simplicity, and this track nails it in such a pretty way.

Because I am jetlagged, sleep deprived, and lazy, I suspect I have fallen for the easiest, most accessible songs on this album first. But given my track record with this band, I figure that's not a bad start.


Disclaimer: given my slow burning history with Fleet Foxes, I reserve my right to change my view of this album when I've had a chance to listen to it more than once...

Bright Eyes, Cassadaga (2007)

I started writing this entry on a brilliantly sunny Berlin day, on the lawn of the Reichstag. I was readjusting to being on holiday, to the freedom that is walking through a city until completely lost. Remembering how to not have deadlines, how to endlessly wander with only myself for company, how to spend my time at Parliament not going inside for meetings, but lazing in the sun with a book and a great album. And Cassadaga was that particular album.

I’ve decided Bright Eyes has a penchant for melodramatic, slightly annoying, voiced-over beginnings to their albums. The beginning of Cassadaga is no less annoying than that of I’m Wide Awake. But, just like the earlier album, this is a beautiful, melodic, measured little album; a meander through Conor Oberst’s mind.

I’m rather taken by ‘If the Brakeman Turns my Way’ – a rambling little tune that’s somehow both wistful and whimsical, almost nonchalant. There’s something kind of Wilco about this track, albeit I don’t think with the same depth. I’m also a big fan of the raucous ride of ‘I Must Belong Somewhere.’

This is an album full of really, really good songs, but to me the clear and exceptional stand-out is ‘Classic Cars’, in collaboration with the endlessly talented Gillian Welch. I just can’t get enough of it, and it does lead me to wonder if everything she touches turns to gold (quite apart from her superb solo voice, she has a real knack for picking awesome bands with whom to collaborate.) A reminiscent, understated little ballad, it features some wicked organ and continues to build on that new mature use of pianos we saw in I’m Wide Awake. And Welch manages, in her own genius way, to just lift the track without dominating it. It’s a perfectly restrained track that kind of just washes over you, full of both euphoria and a tinge of regret. My favourite moment of the album (and indeed one of my favourite moments in music generally, right now) happens about 3 and a half minutes through this song.




One of the features of this album that was so suited to the beautiful, honest backdrop of Berlin is the recurring orchestral component. It begins from the first track, and continues right through to the wonderful cello that complements the final song. There’s a pulsing, dramatic orchestral segment through ‘Hot Knives’, which adds a certain urgency to the song. The strings add lovely depth to ‘No One Would Riot for Less’, and the delicate harp (?) and woodwinds that open ‘Make a Plan to Love Me’, followed by a big strings section (and the multi-voiced female BVs) turns an otherwise fairly unremarkable ballad into a pretty little vehicle for Oberst’s weirdly poetic lyrics. It’s just enough drama, without, in my opinion, going overboard. It is terribly clever.

I know I’m meant to be listening to lots of different music. But this album, alongside the 2005 effort, is, without doubt, the soundtrack to my short European summer.

It’s music to travel to, the perfect companion for the road.