The ALL NEW "what are you listening to?" thread!

[Identity Crisis Ahoy!]

Today I went back and listened to the Eels' "Beautiful Freak" album.  It's been a few years and I'm surprised it's held up as well as it has.  In fact it's speaking more to me than it did before.  My favourite track is still the sublime "Guest List" with that excellent creeping bass riff giving way to the melancholy verse being a great moment.

After listening to it I put in an order with 101cd.com to get some CDs of theirs I didn't have, since 101 are having an Eels sale at the moment. Can't wait to hear what I've been missing out on.

I got back into that album again, too, recently. Not Ready Yet is brilliant. As for me;

Mogwai, Sigur Rios and Pixies. My soul feels good.

[Famous Mortimer]

I was sorting through my old CDs, and gave a re-listen to "ISDN" by Future Sound Of London. I'd forgotten how absolutely bloody brilliant it was and is – I then remembered my friend had a cassette bootleg of one of their original broadcasts via the ISDN system and how that had sat in my walkman for about three months when I was a young 'un (and I played it a lot, was the impression I was trying to get across).

[Baxter]

I'm currently kicking it old wu-tang style with the 36 chambers of death kid.

It's a rather depressing sort of nostalgia listening to Da Mystery of Chessboxin' makes me quite angry at how shit the latest and all other albums have been, this CD was hardly out of my CD player late in the last century it has everything, wonderfully surprising rhymes, violence, theatrics, humour.

[olafr]

Louvin Brothers - tragic songs of life

[Vitalstatistix]

The Walkmen past few days. Lovely, seemingly underrated band. 'Bows + Arrows' is such a grower. An astonishingly good album.

[alan nagsworth]

It is a good song but I heard most of their new album while in a branch of HMV yesterday and it sounds pretty disappointing.

I'm loving this album at the moment. Hot Chip have come on in leaps and bounds since their first album, Made In The Dark shows how they've progressed very nicely.

Also, The Knife are fucking great aren't they? I've been into Deep Cuts a fair bit recently but I've only just came across the brilliance of Silent Shout. Beautiful stuff.

[Artemis]

Been listening to the teasers of new tracks by Doug Walker on his MySpace today. Very excited about his debut LP this year ('Fear Together'). This will be the make or break year for Doug. His first single ('The Mystery') comes out March 10th. I'm not terribly thrilled about it to be honest, I mean it's good, but it pales in comparison with the other tracks on his MySpace, I think. I used to live next door to Doug and knew the guy very well; I rate him in the top league of singer/songwriters. Hopefully he'll get the success he deserves. Getting Moyle's support last year resulted in a deal with Warner Bros. and a tour as support for Amy MacDonald, so it could very well happen for him,.

[Cack Hen]

Silent Shout is great, I jog to it!

I'm now listening to Feist. I get a bit tired of all those Broken Social Scene spinoffs and side projects being patchy, so I never really gave her a chance, but after seeing her on Jools Holland I decided to give her latest album a shot. And it's very good!

[buttgammon]

I'm loving this album at the moment. Hot Chip have come on in leaps and bounds since their first album, Made In The Dark shows how they've progressed very nicely.

Well, in spite of what I said before I got the album today because sometimes it just takes a while for things to grow on you and I'm going to give it another try later.

[Hank_Kingsley]

I usually hate hyped new young things and I do sort of hate her for being so young and talented, but anyway Laura Marling is really rather good.

[JCBillington]

Right now I am 50 minutes into an absolutely brilliant Parliament-Funkadelic DVD called Mothership Connection. I bought on saturday from Poundland, for, you know, a pound. The problem with pound shops is I have to resist impulse buys, or I end up spending loads. I saw this DVD in the queue and was actually reticent at first, as there is very little information on it, and it is credited to George Clinton, with Parliament Funkadelic in very small letters, and the only date is 1998, which made me think it might be a more recent 'reunion' type performance.

It isn't. It is a fucking staggering prime mid 70s performance of such dazzling and sustained mentalism that it is amazing to think that not only did a band as fantastic as this ever exist, but that they were really popular and released dozens of records. I like the P-Funk albums, but tend to skip through to my favourite tracks, but there is no slack in this set at all. Right from the start, the astonishingly vicious guitar solos that tear into 'Cosmic Slop' set the tone. Things get funkier, crazier and weirder from there. It's not especially well filmed, it appears to have been shot on video for TV. There are weird stills between the songs, which seem to be intended as ad bumpers. The stage is not lit for photography, so you can normally only see who is at the front of the stage at the time, in medium close ups. However, you get some idea of the madness that is going on, and the music makes up for the visual shortcomings.

Best pound ever spent? Definitely more fun than the decidely less funky pack of 15 sponge scourers.

[The Masked Unit]

23 by Blonde Redhead is rather lovely, and seing them open for Interpol in November was one of the highlights of the year.

[buttgammon]

Well, in spite of what I said before I got the album today because sometimes it just takes a while for things to grow on you and I'm going to give it another try later.

Well, I'm listening to the album now and I'm very glad I got it because it is indeed excellent. I think hearing it in a soulless chain store surrounded by shoppers in a very hot and uncomfortable environment clouded my judgement before unless it goes downhill later on.

Actually, it was the later bits I heard before come to think of it and I'm only a few tracks in now but if these few songs are very strong indeed and I knew from hearing it before that 'Ready for the Floor' is a brilliant song.

Edit: No, this is all good stuff too. What the hell was I on about before? This is a really good album.

[Famous Mortimer]

Best pound ever spent? Definitely more fun than the decidely less funky pack of 15 sponge scourers.

Wish we still had a Poundland in Chesterfield now :(

[monkhouse terror]

everything basic channel oriented that i can get my hands on.

the latest is the rhythm and sound 'see mi yah' remixes from last year. dub techno stylings with cuts from villalobos and carl craig, superb

/posturing

[trotsky assortment]

Right now, thanks to the joys of the new streaming on demand via LastFM, I'm re-visiting Jeff Beck's back-catalogue.  I'm blown away by how good some of it is.

[Don_Preston]

Right now, thanks to the joys of the new streaming on demand via LastFM, I'm re-visiting Jeff Beck's back-catalogue.  I'm blown away by how good some of it is.

My Dad insists that the live album with the Jan Hammer Group is one of the best live albums ever made. Upon hearing it, I'm not at all convinced, marred by some dodgy singing and that

[Beck]

Hello. I am listening to 'The American Metaphysical Circus' by Joe Byrd and the Field Hippies. It is good. Bye.

[trotsky assortment]

About Jeff Beck:

My Dad insists that the live album with the Jan Hammer Group is one of the best live albums ever made. Upon hearing it, I'm not at all convinced, marred by some dodgy singing and that

Ah, Don...You'll be wanting Jeff's fab instrumental stuff.  Have a go at 1989's 'Guitar Shop'.
(I'd really like to go with a Jeff Beck thread, as I know he gets mentioned among other threads from time to time).

[Anon]

Today, I managed to wrangle a promo copy (boy, dosn't that make me sound far more important than I actually am...) of the new The Mountain Goats album, Heretic Pride.  Although I'm not hugely familiar with their older work, I can be pretty sure in saying that it's a fantastic album: the pairing of In The Craters On The Moon and Lovecraft In Brooklyn in the middle of the album is especially stunning, and the last track is a thing of real beauty.  Certainly one for any Neutral Milk Hotel and Decemberists fans looking for something else in a kind-of-similar-ish vein. 

I've also been listening to that Hot Chip album as well, and while I was initially pretty delighted with it, it's actually fallen a little in my estimation on further listens, especially given that their slow songs are still largely shit, which is one very irritating flaw they've failed to fix on the record.  Still worth a listen mind.

[buttgammon]

Yeah, I agree that the slower Hot Chip songs tend to be mostly fairly awful and still are on this album. But I think the first few tracks are very good and it goes downhill from there. It's not as bad as I expected having heard some of the worse tracks in a stuffy record shop about a week ago but it's not as good as I thought it was the first time I played it in full and I don't think it's anywhere near as good as The Warning. But it's listenable and 'Ready for the Floor' is a terrific song.

[alan nagsworth]

They should knock the slow songs on the head entirely, they're not that sort of band at all. That said, a couple of the slower tracks work quite well on Made In The Dark. Can't remember the names though, not given it enough attention yet.

The more I listen to it, the more I dislike Shake A Fist. When the snare drum kicks in, you get the standard "NOW is a good time to start dancing" vibe but the snare itself sounds shite and the song just feels like it was thrown together aimlessly, with random noises like that stupid fucking RAAGH! scream noise which devastates the whole song, and that "sounds of te studio" guy... whatever the fuck he's on about I'll never know.

[Famous Mortimer]

Today, I managed to wrangle a promo copy (boy, dosn't that make me sound far more important than I actually am...) of the new The Mountain Goats album, Heretic Pride.  Although I'm not hugely familiar with their older work, I can be pretty sure in saying that it's a fantastic album: the pairing of In The Craters On The Moon and Lovecraft In Brooklyn in the middle of the album is especially stunning, and the last track is a thing of real beauty.  Certainly one for any Neutral Milk Hotel and Decemberists fans looking for something else in a kind-of-similar-ish vein. 

When they achieve the fame they deserve, I shall make a ton of money by selling off all my old cassettes and 7"s of them from the early 90s. Go Mountain Goats!!

[Captain Crunch]

At the moment, Groundhogs.  I wasn't very impressed with them at first but gave them another go after hearing Earthless' cover of 'Cherry Red' (see below).  Really starting to get into it now.

Earthless - Cherry Red

[trotsky assortment]

Is that the old 70s blues-y band Groundhogs, Cap'n?

[marwood]

Chris Clark has broken my disillusionment with electronica with his latest, Turning Dragons. I value this album; as evidenced by the fact that I bought it with money, despite having the leaked 320kbps mp3s already.

I think Clark may be an acquired taste though, people say he's not comparable with yer Autechre or Aphex etc, but it's in the same vein, and to my ears just as good.

[alan nagsworth]

Chris Clark has broken my disillusionment with electronica with his latest, Turning Dragons. I value this album; as evidenced by the fact that I bought it with money, despite having the leaked 320kbps mp3s already.

I think Clark may be an acquired taste though, people say he's not comparable with yer Autechre or Aphex etc, but it's in the same vein, and to my ears just as good.

Ooh new Clark stuff? Body Riddle was a stunning album, and I heard a new track on warprecords.com the other day which sounded much different to BR. I'm excited!

[Captain Crunch]

Is that the old 70s blues-y band Groundhogs, Cap'n?

That's the one.  I picked up their best of a few years ago when I was trying to get hold of a lot of old stuff.  At the time I had stuff like Sir Lord Baltimore and Ten Years After to get excited over so Groundhogs just fell to bottom of the pile.  I'd still be interested if anyone has any similar bands they'd like to recommend...?

[marwood]

Ooh new Clark stuff? Body Riddle was a stunning album, and I heard a new track on warprecords.com the other day which sounded much different to BR. I'm excited!

yeah, it's big. Highly recommended. Not as chilled as Body Riddle; more on the raw side à la last year's Throttlepromoter. Still got some nice BOC style analog synth action amongst the IDM beats though.

[Mindbear]

Silent Shout is great, I jog to it!

Oooh, maybe that would help in my quest to be able to jog, it always struck me as far too downtempo to exercise to, but thinking about it, there's only a few tracks that are way below 120bpm. I'm hoping to hear something more from The Knife soon, it's surely time for the next album?

As for me, I've been listening solidly to These New Puritans - Best Pyramid and the Foals album, which isn't quite as good as it should be, but still great.