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

[jamiefairlie]

Grasscut - Wintering Now

https://youtu.be/JeMc-LR5fvk



From "Overwinter"

"'Overwinter' ticks all the boxes I look for in music and does it cinematically too. Each of the tracks on the album feels like they could also be used in a musical. The cosy but sad piano and strings of 'The Archive' break into a waltzing symphony with radio snippets of different media."

[Clatty McCutcheon]

I don't feel I've properly digested 2021 yet (partly due to playing lots of old music from this thread and its predecessors), but I'll give it a go with a few selections.

Marina Allen - Sleeper Train

Achieving the impossible of making a sleeper train sound enticing, Marina Allen's voice attracted comparisons to Karen Carpenter and Laura Nero when her (extremely short but rather lovely) album Candlepower appeared last year.

[jamiefairlie]

I don't feel I've properly digested 2021 yet (partly due to playing lots of old music from this thread and its predecessors), but I'll give it a go with a few selections.

Marina Allen - Sleeper Train

Achieving the impossible of making a sleeper train sound enticing, Marina Allen's voice attracted comparisons to Karen Carpenter and Laura Nero when her (extremely short but rather lovely) album Candlepower appeared last year.

Good man! She's on my list of people to investigate next.

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Constant Follower - Set Aside Some Time

A track from Neither Is, Nor Ever Was, the debut album of the 'ambient folk' project formed by Stirling-based musician Stephen McAll.

[jamiefairlie]

Immersion & Laetitia Sadier - Riding The Wave

https://youtu.be/TJ9lJZvphYc




Immersion are Malka Spigel and Colin Newman. Although best known for their work with, respectively, Minimal Compact and Wire, the duo's work as Immersion provides an outlet for their ongoing fascination in crafting enthralling, unique musical soundscapes

From "Nanocluster Vol. 1"

"Stereolab's Latetia Sadier's tunes includes a duet with Newman which combines the distinctive elements of both their parent acts."

[jamiefairlie]

Indigo Sparke - Undone

https://youtu.be/0RpWZBErCso





From "Echo"

"Sparke emphasises the intimacy and immediacy of her performances on this debut, which sounds like you've walked into her rehearsal space."

[jamiefairlie]

Jetstream Pony - The Naked Time

https://youtu.be/hIfN5q9CXhk




From "Misplaced Words"

"with their incessant thrum and whirr, juxtaposed against jangled riffs that are always just about allowed to crawl their way to the surface, these tracks would be absolutely everything The Wedding Present is, if it was not for the extra propulsion of the percussion in the JSP sound and the casual sweetness of the Beth Arzy vocals, that add deliberated sacharinne and disparation to the carefully constructed, surrounding mayhem."

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Nation of Language - This Fractured Mind

It's fair to say that this New York synth-pop trio have heard some early OMD and Depeche Mode songs, but they have some good tunes. This was the lead single (if such things still exist) from their second album, A Way Forward.

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Annie Booth - Tropic

Elegant balladry from the second album by Edinburgh singer/songwriter Annie Booth, Lazybody.

[jamiefairlie]

Josienne Clarke - The Collector

https://youtu.be/Sc2ds543hUk




Scotland based singer-songwriter Josienne Clarke self-released her first EP 'The Tangled Tree' (as Mondesir) in 2006

From "A Small Unknowable Thing"

"At 14 tracks and 36 minutes, many tracks are over in just over two minutes. Their brevity helps make each song feel direct and unique. Whilst Josienne Clarke's voice is lovely, it isn't her leading weapon in her arsenal. It's her ability to craft songs that sound simple on the surface, effortlessly."

[jamiefairlie]

Karen Peris - I Would Sing Along

https://youtu.be/T7wuFrN3nWo



Second solo album (and first in nine years) from The Innocence Mission singer.

From "A Song is Way Above the Lawn"

"It's fitting, then, that A Song Is Way Above the Lawn is both a family affair and an album aimed directly at children. Indeed, Peris's birdlike chirp has long been the ideal instrument to properly convey the fragility and wide-eyed innocence of childhood. That she's gravitated towards producing a children's album under her own name should then come as little surprise. A Song Is Way Above the Lawn, it being a natural fit with her soothing vocal presence and the childlike sense of wonder often inherent within her lyrics"

[jamiefairlie]

Lost Horizons - Grey Tower

https://youtu.be/NLmmkpBRuZE




From "In Quiet Moments"

"One of the most interesting releases of 2021 so far. ... Two tracks in, some details start to surface: the production, which leaves a lot of air for the singers to breathe and shine, and the very subtle but delightful instrumentation of every track of this recording. ... In Quiet Moments recalls an album that marked a generation of artists during the second half of the 80s, a project known as This Mortal Coil introduced by an album titled It'll End In Tears"

[jamiefairlie]

Mint Julep - In Your Sleep

https://youtu.be/7VTc_GdKlDg




From "In a Deep and Dreamless Sleep"

"At times sparse and minimalist, at other times highly emotive, this album has something for every electronica fan and covers a range of mystic synthesizers and guitars, creating an absorbing ambient collection of romantic dream pop."

[jamiefairlie]

Mogwai - Ritchie Sacramento

https://youtu.be/VWjzlJEmmxM




From "As the Love Continues"

"The Scottish band is on familiar ground, patiently building mountainous songs suffused in nameless sadness, but they sound energized by the darkness—and refreshingly resistant to self-seriousness. A Mogwai melody always sounds like a eulogy for someone you've never met"

[jamiefairlie]

Peter Bruntnell - Merrion

https://youtu.be/525a5GjWm4o




From "Journey to the Sun"

"For his 12th album, 'Journey To The Sun' Peter Bruntnell offers profoundly contemplative, lucid songwriting that is melodically rich and beautifully produced. If anyone can capture the isolation and introspection brought about by months of lockdown Bruntnell can."

[jamiefairlie]

Plantman - Viaduct

https://youtu.be/9emrkqgBACY




From "Days of the Rocks"

[jamiefairlie]

Shannon Lay - Time's Arrow

https://youtu.be/1IUjsyp2AAY



Shannon Lay (born 1991) is an American folk and punk musician

From "Geist "

"Geist, an album largely focused on spiritual shifts and ruptures, is a quiet, lovely, undramatic rendering of the dramatic. It's perhaps a different way to interpret the Tower: how ruination can lead to resurrection, and life can feel sweetest when one surrenders to change."

[jamiefairlie]

The Catenary Wires - Canterbury Lanes

https://youtu.be/XY85ldWcFXs



From "Birling Gap"

"Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey, once of Heavenly, Tender Trap, and Talulah Gosh, are back with more reflections on Englishness set to shimmering melodies"

[jamiefairlie]

The Notwist - Sans Soleil

https://youtu.be/8Uq43VuqHj0



First entry in 19 years.

From "Vertigo Days"

"The material on the album is a constellation of soft and fragile connections between intangible forms of rock. ... Juana Molina moves "Al Sur" with propulsive singing and electronic rhythms, making the song her own before "Into Love Again" brings this lovely album full circle with a Yann Tiersen like folk ballad."

[jamiefairlie]

48 Hour Alert!
2021 will close on Monday night

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Are we doing 2022 then? Or is the alternative history of pop music going to roll on indefinitely in real time?

Back to 2021:

The Orange Peels - Human

From the album Celebrate the Moments of Your Life by the veteran Californian indie trio fronted by singer and principal songwriter Allen Clapp.

[Clatty McCutcheon]

2nd Grade - Favorite Song

Returning to a familiar power-pop theme, the songs of Philadelphia musician Peter Gill, aka 2nd Grade, usually clock in at less than two minutes.  From the album Wish You Were Here Tour Revisited, a re-recorded version of debut album Wish You Were Here Tour.

[jamiefairlie]

Welcome to 2022!

[jamiefairlie]

OK, so we're now entering real time coverage. The idea is when you hear something good from now on, just create an entry here.

Slight change to the qualifying criteria, it no longer has to be from this year, if it's old and non-obvious and new to you then it qualifies too.

[jamiefairlie]

Breathless - So Far from Love

https://youtu.be/9fjjr86Ops0



Their first entry in ten years

From "See Those Colours Fly "

"The album is firmly in the grand tradition of Breathless music - epic, ethereal, otherworldly - but there's an economy to these dulcet visions, their hunger for wide-open sounds tempered by a discipline, a commitment to the song. The result is perhaps the most perfectly distilled album of the group's career"

[jamiefairlie]

Chastity Belt - Fake

https://youtu.be/faFn8yOAQ0o



Released as a single

"While the music is awash in a golden-hour glow, the lyrics portray this impostor syndrome as an airless, claustrophobic feeling: talking in a quiet room just to make noise, with "words that just hang in the air/and stories that aren't going anywhere." "

[jamiefairlie]

Laura Veirs - New Arms

https://youtu.be/hZrPkh2vJGs





From "Found Light"

"The Portland songwriter captures a mood of ordinary enchantment on her spacious and stirring 12th record. Laura Veirs writes bookish, patient music that draws you in slowly and steadily, the images developing at the tantalizing pace of unshaken Polaroids"

[jamiefairlie]

Martin Courtney - Shoes

https://youtu.be/g8NqnXd5Yu0



Real Estate singer

From "Magic Sign"

"Despite its overt optimism, there are cracks in the album's dreamy facade. Courtney's lyrics are filled with allusions to silent houses and empty lots, all of which give the impression of a world that's moved on from his memories"

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Daniel Rossen - Shadow in the Frame

Jazz and folk-inflected solo material from the debut solo album
from Grizzly Bear man Daniel Rossen.

[jamiefairlie]

Mice Parade - Eisa Dancers

https://youtu.be/fJhgLS_FuDw




First entry in 15 years

From "Lapapọ "

"The result is a melodic, complex and occasionally noisy album that, whilst instantly affecting,  rewards with repeated listens. "