Wednesday 13 August 2008

Compay

I know I said I'd post something more cheerful, but I lied. At least today's track isn't actively depressing. It's a track called Compay, by San Francisco avant-garde jazz group Tin Hat Trio, now known just as Tin Hat.

This was the first track I ever heard by the group, and it's still one of my favourites. It's from their fourth album,
Book of Silk, released on Ropeadope records in 2004. Each of their CDs has a mood all of its own; it's not often you can say a band truly breaks away from genre definitions, and I certainly wouldn't want to bandy such descriptions around freely, but it's justified in this case. Elements are recognisable - maybe a nod to jazz violinists like Stéphane Grappelli, a bow to country styling (Willie Nelson actually featured, singing a track on 2002 album The Rodeo Eroded) or a hark to Philip Glass' repetitive, hypnotic and beautiful rhythms, but these are only really oblique facets. They're a mysterious band, full of dark corners and cobwebs.

Interesting fact - the track is in 7/8 time signature, which is pretty unusual. Well, I thought it was interesting.


Compay

Monday 11 August 2008

You Never Wash Up After Yourself

Being teenage, disaffected and British it's pretty much a given that I have a soft spot for Radiohead, even if they formed in Oxford. There's been a bit of a backlash against them in recent times among indie circles, but to my ear the music is still groundbreaking and unique in its weird attractiveness. Thom Yorke has one of the most tender and moving voices of anyone in music today, and he uses it to great effect on big, shuddery songs, but also in tracks like today's. Today's track is from one of Radiohead's many, many EPs. Originally a B-side to the single release of My Iron Lung, later to feature on studio album The Bends, it's a very short, very simple track which to my ear is pure poetry, both lyrical and musical. The lyrics are classic Radiohead, combining pathos with grimy undertones, misery and longing. I promise I'll post a more cheerful song tomorrow.

You Never Wash Up After Yourself

I must get out once in a while
Everything is starting to die
The dust settles
The worms dig
Spiders crawl over the bed

I must get out once in a while
I eat all day and now I'm fat
Yesterday's meal is hugging the plates
You never wash up after yourself

You Never Wash Up After Yourself

Added bonus with today's post - Nude from In Rainbows played on old computer parts; mp3

Tuesday 5 August 2008

A Time For Love

I think at least part of the reason I like Bill Evans so much is that, like me, he was a skinny white guy in glasses. So many incredible jazz musicians are black that occasionally there's a temptation to imagine that jazz is reserved for black people, that white jazz musicians are somehow disrespectful or pretentious. Bill Evans was one of the first jazz pianists I listened to who wasn't black; and to hear him draw the same cascading music that I'd been at first entranced by out of the piano gave me courage to keep on trying.

Bill Evans was, of course, one of the most important jazz pianists of the 20th century, influencing all sorts of incredibly talented musicians who would go on to great things themselves (Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis). He had a prodigious recording career, making about 50 LPs under his own name and featuring on as many more as a sideman. Today's track is one of my favourites, and one that I keep telling myself I'll transcribe and learn, but have yet to. It's called A Time for Love and it's from his first solo LP, Alone.

A Time For Love