Monthly Archives: September 2002

A funny week at work. I’ve taken to reviewing pizza restaurants on citysearch.

I have a few music recording things planned for the weekend and next week. Basically I need to sleep though.

Elis Regina and Antonio Carlos Jobim: 'Elis & Tom' (CD; Philips; 1974)
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This is a strange record. Some days I can't stand it, but some days I love it. Perhaps because it's so widely known and played, I find it slightly too sweet sometimes. But it has an undeniable charm as well. The version of 'Águas de março' is my favorite take on this song.

Compilation - Julie London: 'Julie...at home/Around Midnight' (CD; EMI; 1960)
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One of the best 2-on-1 Julie London reissues there is, alongside 'Julie is her name 1 & 2'. Here's what I wrote about this on Amazon a few years ago:

Both albums are brilliant. 'At home' is dominated by bouncy, vibes-oriented small-combo jazz. 'Round Midnight' is a devastatingly moving masterpiece, with some thick orchestral arrangements. When you listen to the song 'round midnight', you might die, so be sure to keep all guns, dangerous pills etc locked up.

Is it weird to be in NYC today? For me, not especially (so far, anyway). I’m going out for a meal later, so I’ll get a chance to look around the streets a little more. But so far, the only thing that has been different about today was that I turned on the TV for 10 minutes in the morning (what was that string quartet/chamber orchestra doing there?) to watch some of the ceremony down at the WTC site. To me, Pataki comes across as so fake that he makes Bloomberg seem sincere. Anyway, although I couldn’t fail to notice some people crying (or looking as if they had been crying) on the subway, the rest of my day has been spent in air-conditioned confinement in my office. I wouldn’t say I haven’t been reflective, but then again, I doubt there has been a single day in the last year when I haven’t reflected on what happened. Overall, my impression is that people are sad rather than scared, and I guess that’s as it should be.

Compilation: 'Go Right' (CD; Jazzanova Compost; 1963-1975)
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A great compilation that was totally rocking my world a couple of years ago. A great way to discover the Novi Singers, and a lot of other offbeat Polish jazz from the 60s and 70s.

David Bowie: 'Low' (CD; EMI; 1977)
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This is still my favorite Bowie album. Apparently he toured recently playing the whole album. Not near me he didn't!.

Compilation - Pixies: 'Complete 'B' Sides' (CD; 4AD; 1988-1991)
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This is notable for the utterly incredible, spine-tingling version of 'River Euphrates'.

Quarteto Em Cy: 'Quarteto Em Cy' (CD; Mercury; 1965)
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Why can't I ever find any of this group's 60s records? Because they're brilliant and everybody wants them. This Japanese CD is great. I hope they release their US-issue 'Girls from Bahia' albums too.

Roy Budd: 'Diamonds' (CD; Castle; 1976)
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An very nice soundtrack. Lush and percussive, with Budd's characteristic 'sharp' keyboard sound. The vocal version of the main theme, sung by the Three Degrees, is slightly shmaltzy, and is one of the few areas of the soundtrack that reveals its 1976 recording date. The sax solo (by UK budget LP 'best of the bossa novas' creator Duncan Lamont) is not to my taste, but the tune is still pretty strong. 'The thief' is a standout instrumental with some incredible beats.

Teardrop Explodes: 'Wilder' (CD; Mercury; 1981)
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Wedding Present: 'Seamonsters' (CD; BMG; 1991)
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When this album was released, I was 17 years old, and at the peak of my Wedding Present mania. Listening to it now, I'm not going to tell you I completely understand why I liked them so much, but it certainly takes me back...

Recorded with Steve Albini, in Pachyderm, this is a nice enough LP. Some of the songs sound like they were bashed out in 10 minutes, but they're catchy nevertheless, including 'lovenest' (an unsuccessful single) and 'octopussy'. Albini's production appeals to me most on tracks like 'Suck', where the scything guitar sound is rather gripping. The 3 minute quiet feedback at the end of 'Lovenest' is less enthralling.

My main disappointment about the album was always that the songs here don't live up to the amazing Peel session versions of a few of the tracks that were recorded earlier. In particular, 'Blonde' has lost much of the simple catchiness of its original (scarcely-known) version.

This disc includes all the contemporary B-sides, which is nice for an old fan like me. However, some of them are appalling, such as 'Fleshworld', on which the vocals seem to have been completely made up on the spot.

It's an interesting nostalgia trip for me to hear this record again. However, if I had known then what I know now, I doubt I ever would have been interested in this record at all.

I quite like Rhapsody, honestly. The weird thing is that for me, this is never going to be a replacement for things like napster or audiogalaxy. What this has done is make me realize that internet radio—with the possibility of effortless self-programming—is attractive to me in a way I didn’t consider before. Below is a playlist I made. I guess the problem for me is that you still can’t really get anything that’s especially rare on here. If they start to digitize unreleases mastertapes, or out-of-print albums, then things could get interesting! Still, at $9.95 a month, this is almost worth it. Perhaps if it was $20 a year I’d do it.

Step back to the early 90s with me, if you will:.

“5-4=Unity” – Pavement

“Marbles” – Tindersticks

“Souvlaki Space Station” – Slowdive

“I Wear Your Ring” – Cocteau Twins

“Lose My Breath” – My Bloody Valentine

“Pack Yr Romantic Mind” – Stereolab

“Loretta’s Scars” – Pavement

“Take Me!” – The Wedding Present

“I Know It’s Gonna Happen Someday” – Morrissey

“International Colouring Contest” – Stereolab

“Blown A Wish” – My Bloody Valentine

“The Wild Ones” – The London Suede (London?!)

“Pashernate Love” – Morrissey

“Vapour Trail” – Ride

“Silver Shorts” – The Wedding Present

“Say Hello Wave Goodbye ’91” – Soft Cell (obviously I wanted the original version, but they didn’t have it…)

Rhapsody is Audiogalaxy’s new rival to Pressplay. Marketing note to Pressplay: try offering free, no-strings access. I would never have thought about subscribing to the Rhapsody service, but having tried it, I’m actually half-considering it (ok, maybe a quarter). This isn’t like Audiogalaxy – as far as I can tell, there’s no burnable downloading. It’s more like a personalized radio station, with the option to program it all yourself.

There are some big problems with the service. First of all, it seems to rely on Windows Media, and so there’s no Mac version offered. The coverage is also disappointing when compared to Audiogalaxy or Napster. The service claims to offer music by 17,000 artists. That’s great, but I wasn’t pleased to see that there were no songs available by, for example, Scott Walker.

That said, Rhapsody has sleek, fast search interface, and you can search by song. So I was able to (finally) hear the first recorded vocal version of the theme to ‘Laura’ (by Johnnie Johnson), listen to dozens of great Julie London songs, etc. The real strength for me was the speed, and the ability to browse at will various recordings of songs from the great American songbook. The audio quality was generally good – the one track I had problems with, Carly Simon’s take on ‘Laura’ was terrible anyway.

The service is free until September 15th. If you’re a PC user, I recommend checking it out.

I’ve been beavering away behind the scenes here, and will be releasing a snazzy ‘browse’ interface to this weblog in the near future. For a sneak peek, see http://www.psychedelicado.com/blog/browserecords.php. Now that’s nearly finished, I’ll be able to get back to writing about and listening to music again…

Sergio Mendes & Bossa Rio: 'Você Ainda Não Ouviu Nada!' (CD; Universal; 1963)
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I couldn't resist picking up this sumptously packaged and remastered disc today. It's a classic instrumental samba jazz record; understated, but perfectly performed. More on this soon, but it seems as if Universal/Dubas in Brazil have just reissued several interesting albums, all of which are available at a reasonable price.