An Alternative History of "Pop" Music: Part 3, 2004 -

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Damien Jurado - Silver Timothy

A highlight of Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son,the third of a trilogy of Richard Swift-produced albums by Damien Jurado. This was Jurado's most multilayered and complex album to date, with a dreamlike and gently psychedelic atmosphere and a slightly impenetrable 'concept' about a man on a mystical quest.

[jamiefairlie]

48 Hour Alert!

2015 will open late on Tuesday

[Brundle-Fly]

Happy Before - The John Steel Singers. Released on Full Time Hobby in 2014.





Hints of kwela in this upbeat power pop track from Down Under.

The John Steel Singers were an Australian six-piece band from Brisbane, Queensland, named after a toy horse that band member Tim Morrissey named John Steel.They were formed in 2007 when Morrissey and Scott Bromiley decided to start making music together and were soon joined by Ross Chandler, Pete Bernoth, Pat McDermott and Luke McDonald (formerly of Sunk Loto) . The band released an EP and a mini album independently before signing with Levi's Jeans' record label Levity and releasing another EP, In Colour. The band has had multiple tracks on rotation on Triple J, won a Triple J Unearthed competition and became the Unearthed Artist of the Year in 2008.

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Young Fathers - Get Up

An alternative hip-hop/R&B trio from Edinburgh, Young Fathers won the Mercury Music Prize in 2014 with their debut album Dead, from which this track, with its bursts of heavy distorted bass, and discordant but somehow catchy backing track, is taken.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

TeenCanteen - You're Still Mine

Another AAHOPM entry for this indie-pop group from Glasgow. See 2013 for further details.

[Clatty McCutcheon]

The Hosts - Give Your Love to Her

A bit of Wall of Sound on a budget from Sheffield band The Hosts. From their debut album Softly Softly, co-produced with Richard Hawley.

[Brundle-Fly]

Odilon Escapes From The Charcoal Oblivion, But Endeavours To Return And Rescue The Cactus Men - Regal Worm.  Released on Quatermass in 2014.





21st century prog joy! Strap in, the track is eighteen and a half minutes long.

Regal Worm is a progressive rock project by Varrod Goblink AKA Jarrod Gosling of Sheffield, England based electronic pop psych outfit I, Monster.

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Fauna Flora - The Arms of Winter

I wanted to post the seasonally appropriate track 'The Ides of Spring' from the self-titled and only album by this Pennsylvania chamber-pop quartet, fronted by singer/songwriter Steve Ward, formerly of power-pop band Cherry Twist, but they only have three tracks on YouTube, so I've gone for this less seasonally appropriate but no less elegant track.

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Ibibio Sound Machine - Let's Dance (Yak Inek Unek)

The debut single from London Afrobeat/funk/electronic collective Ibibio Sound Machine, with lyrics in English and the Ibibio language of southern Nigeria by frontwoman Eno Williams.

[Norton Canes]

Been listening to their new album, it's brilliant

[jamiefairlie]

Welcome to 2015!

[jamiefairlie]

Anna von Hausswolff - An Oath

https://youtu.be/BqS0vmM8J1U




From "The Miraculous"

"As a composer, singer, and sound sculptor, Hausswolff is in full control on The Miraculous, balancing harshness and intimacy, heaviness and airy melancholy. It's an uncompromising view, but it's also welcoming."

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

The Unthanks - Magpie

The Unthanks are an English folk group known for their eclectic approach in combining traditional English folk, particularly Northumbrian folk music, with other musical genres. They are led by two sisters, Rachel and Becky Unthank.

Magpie is taken from their eighth album, Mount the Air. It was used to haunting effect in an episode from the third series of Mackenzie Crook's Detectorists.

[Astronaut Omens]

Tomeka Reid Quartet- Billy Bang's Bounce

Washington-born Chicago-based jazz cellist Tomeka Reid has played on a lot of avant-garde and improv records, but on this tribute to violinist Billy Bang, she comes up with a very breezy melody indeed, though she and guitarist Mary Halvorsen take it pleasingly out there in the middle of the track. We've covered Billy Bang on the show before, a man whose biography includes a fascinating moment where, while procuring firearms for revolutionaries from pawnshops, he chanced upon three violins and took his life in a completely different direction.
Also in 2015, as a member of the group Artifacts, Tomeka Reid played on this track alongside her sometime mentor Nicole Mitchell. This is beautiful flute led rhapsody that turns eventually into a prayer refrain:
Artifacts- Have Mercy Upon Us

[Astronaut Omens]

Mbongwana Star- From Kinasha to the Moon

A Congolese-Irish guitar band whose music is drenched in dub and psychedelia-style effects. Two of the core Congolese members Coco Ngambali and Theo Nsituvuidi, both sufferers from polio, once had the ambition in their former group Staff Benda Bilili to be the "the most famous handicapped band in Africa".

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Been listening to their new album, it's brilliant

Yeah, was listening to it this morning - it's good stuff.

[Clatty McCutcheon]

BC Camplight - You Should've Gone to School

Brian Christinzio, aka BC Camplight, has featured here before, and he returned in 2015 with the album How to Die in the North.

The music video for 'You Should've Gone to School' (featuring vintage cartoon footage) follows a brief fanfare for its star, Felix the Cat.

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Destroyer - Times Square

Destroyer is the eclectic and long-running project of prolific Canadian singer/songwriter Dan Bejar, a member of New Pornographers, amongst others. This track, reminiscent of the work of some great lost 1970s pop-rock sophisticate, is the centrepiece of the 2015 album Poison Season.

Another (part) animated video too.

[Brundle-Fly]

Walking On A Bearing - Vic Mars.  Released on Clay Pipe Music in 2015.





Oliver Post-Postgate vibes?

Vic Mars is a mysterious, Hertfordshire music maker who creates classical English folk soundscapes for delightful concept albums on Clay Pipe Music.  "I made most of The Land and the Garden while I lived in Japan. It was probably homesickness that made the music sound pastoral and an idyllic thought of a country that didn't really exist anymore, if it ever had.  Although the titles of the tracks were quite descriptive and to the point, it was in general a kind of hazy, catch-all view of Albion, fields and trees, farms and hedgerows unblighted by new roads and construction."

[jamiefairlie]

Belbury Poly - The Geography

https://youtu.be/tU1eC2ch5QI




Belbury Poly is Jim Jupp, who co-runs the Ghost Box record label with Julian House. Belbury Poly's music recalls the churning synth sounds and dreamy analogue forays of the 60s vanguard.

From the compilation "In A Moment... Ghost Box"

"The real genius of this record, and of Ghost Box's output more generally, is that it works even if you don't 'get' the references in anything like a conscious sense, even if they don't make you feel 'nostalgic' per se."

[jamiefairlie]

Cathal Smyth - Love Song No.7

https://youtu.be/Gsv73NF8Mj0



English trumpeter, born 14 January 1959 in London, England, UK.

From "A Comfortable Man"

"Chas Smash, one of Madness's irrepressible 'Nutty Boys', would start a jerky dance-off at the drop of a pork pie hat, but 30 years later Cathal Smyth is a different kettle of mixed-up fish altogether, and his debut solo album is a testament to a life turned upside down. A Comfortable Man is a cathartic exercise, as Smyth sings about how his marriage break-up and no longer being a stay-at-home father have impacted on his life."

[jamiefairlie]

Damon & Naomi - Time Won't Own Me

https://youtu.be/zKrLpyuTbIs




From "Fortune "

"It's all, as you've come to expect from the duo, pretty enough and daydream-inspiring on its own."

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Walking On A Bearing - Vic Mars.  Released on Clay Pipe Music in 2015.

Oliver Post-Postgate vibes?

I've been listening to this beautiful album since I got up this morning. Thanks, Brundle. Thrundle.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Tobias Jesso Jr. - Hollywood

This Canadian piano man channeled the plaintive vibrations of '70s Harry Nilsson, Randy Newman and Tom Waits on Goon, his first and to date only solo album.

He is, however, a prolific songwriter for big mainstream artists such as Adele and Sia.

[Bently Sheds]

Tricot - E

Tricot are fucking amazing.

[Butchers Blind]

Reno Bo - Sweetheart Deal

Taken from the album Lessons From A Shooting Star, a superior slice of power pop from the Nashville based, New York born songwriter, musician and producer Reno Bo. 

[jamiefairlie]

Diagrams - Gentle Morning Song

https://youtu.be/SANtRW7j7_w




From "Chromatics "

"Foreboding as his lyrics often are, there is enormous hope at the heart of this music, and its gentle, almost Elbow-like melodies transform his worries into a warm, soft sanctuary."

[jamiefairlie]

Distance, Light & Sky - Western Avenue

https://open.spotify.com/track/1NkVZLAnkjHEWX6iPPPik0



Trio consisting of Chantal Acda, Chris Eckman & Eric Thielemans

From debut album "Casting Nets"

""Casting Nets" is a melancholy but optimistic album made of quiet and calm sounds, multifarious and nuanced, shaped by its composers and their various characters"

[jamiefairlie]

Fiona & Gorwel Owen - Prayer No.1

https://youtu.be/iIrrZ4MlRI4



Welsh couple who have previously worked with both Super Furry Animals and Gorky's Zygotic Mynci

From "Releasing Birds"

" a consummate mix of acoustic folk and electronic instrumentation, threaded through sinuously by Fiona's rich, warm vocals."

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Liam Hayes - Fokus

Liam Hayes followed up 2014's intricate and slightly baroque Korp Sole Roller album with the much brisker and more direct songs of 2015's Slurrup album, sounding something like a classic 60s power trio on this track.