Obviously I don't listen to albums I don't like; well, not more than once or twice anyway. What I'm getting at is: all the albums I've featured in this particular series are albums I like, to the extent that I've chosen to listen to them in the recent past. Today's two, however, are albums I've got an almost unnatural attachment to.....
Field Songs by Mark Lanegan. Mark Lanegan has a long, varied and distinguished career as the lead singer of the mighty Screaming Trees, solo artist, Queens Of The Stone Age collaborator and more recently duettist with Isobel Campbell of Belle & Sebastian on the very excellent Ballad Of The Broken Seas. He also has a long and varied career of substance abuse, alcohol and an inadvisable number of cigarettes which makes it even more remarkable he's managed to produce the body of work that he has. His solo career dates back to 1990's The Winding Sheet (predating Screaming Trees, even), but this is, in my opinion, the best thing he's ever done. It helps, of course, to have one of the most remarkable voices in rock. "Whisky-soaked", "smoky growl", "gravel-gargling", etc. are the phrases rock journalists usually trot out, and I'm not sure I can improve on any of those. What makes this stand out, though, is the quality of the songs and the sympathetic arrangements, usually comprising no more than a plucked acoustic guitar, a dab of organ and some random ambient noises to back up the voice. The opener One Way Street sets the tone and thereafter there isn't a weak song on the album, from the swirling North African/Middle Eastern stylings of No Easy Action to the sparser Miracle, Don't Forget Me and Resurrection Song. You
must buy this album. Or nick it, I don't mind.
Come On Feel The Illinoise by Sufjan Stevens. Second in a series of albums supposedly covering the full 50 states of the USA (Greetings From Michigan was the first) by the irritatingly talented multi-instrumentalist (banjo, oboe, guitar, drums, piano, bass, saxophone, flute, accordion, glockenspiel to name but several). Ordinarily I'd be inclined to dislike him and his music on general principle, especially as a few of the tunes are whimsical to the extent of teetering on the edge of tweeness, or, in a few cases, disappearing over it altogether. But disguise it under faux-irony how you may, there's no escaping the power of the songs - in particular, the sequence that runs from John Wayne Gacy, Jr. through Jacksonville, Decatur, Chicago and Casimir Pulaski Day is as remarkable as anything you'll ever hear. Casimir Pulaski Day in particular in its depiction of a doomed love affair with a woman with terminal bone cancer is reminiscent of the writings of modern American authors like Dave Eggers and Douglas Coupland - that makes it sound terrible, or at least phenomenally depressing, but it isn't, really. You'll just have to listen to it. Again, buy it, nick it, I don't care. Although if you get caught nicking it I never met you before and we never had this conversation....
Field Songs by Mark Lanegan. Mark Lanegan has a long, varied and distinguished career as the lead singer of the mighty Screaming Trees, solo artist, Queens Of The Stone Age collaborator and more recently duettist with Isobel Campbell of Belle & Sebastian on the very excellent Ballad Of The Broken Seas. He also has a long and varied career of substance abuse, alcohol and an inadvisable number of cigarettes which makes it even more remarkable he's managed to produce the body of work that he has. His solo career dates back to 1990's The Winding Sheet (predating Screaming Trees, even), but this is, in my opinion, the best thing he's ever done. It helps, of course, to have one of the most remarkable voices in rock. "Whisky-soaked", "smoky growl", "gravel-gargling", etc. are the phrases rock journalists usually trot out, and I'm not sure I can improve on any of those. What makes this stand out, though, is the quality of the songs and the sympathetic arrangements, usually comprising no more than a plucked acoustic guitar, a dab of organ and some random ambient noises to back up the voice. The opener One Way Street sets the tone and thereafter there isn't a weak song on the album, from the swirling North African/Middle Eastern stylings of No Easy Action to the sparser Miracle, Don't Forget Me and Resurrection Song. You must buy this album. Or nick it, I don't mind.
Come On Feel The Illinoise by Sufjan Stevens. Second in a series of albums supposedly covering the full 50 states of the USA (Greetings From Michigan was the first) by the irritatingly talented multi-instrumentalist (banjo, oboe, guitar, drums, piano, bass, saxophone, flute, accordion, glockenspiel to name but several). Ordinarily I'd be inclined to dislike him and his music on general principle, especially as a few of the tunes are whimsical to the extent of teetering on the edge of tweeness, or, in a few cases, disappearing over it altogether. But disguise it under faux-irony how you may, there's no escaping the power of the songs - in particular, the sequence that runs from John Wayne Gacy, Jr. through Jacksonville, Decatur, Chicago and Casimir Pulaski Day is as remarkable as anything you'll ever hear. Casimir Pulaski Day in particular in its depiction of a doomed love affair with a woman with terminal bone cancer is reminiscent of the writings of modern American authors like Dave Eggers and Douglas Coupland - that makes it sound terrible, or at least phenomenally depressing, but it isn't, really. You'll just have to listen to it. Again, buy it, nick it, I don't care. Although if you get caught nicking it I never met you before and we never had this conversation....
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