Thursday, 31 December 2020
More Some Awe's Best of 2020
Before It Is Too Late
I've done this before, hurried my list, and missed. I listen to too much music, so forget. These deserve to be on the list, and so here they are:
Blues Pills - Holy Moly!
Chatham County Line - Strange Fascination
Drive-By Truckers - The New OK
Jason Isbell – Reunions
Mino Cinélu & Nils Petter Molvær – SulaMadiana
Sonny Green - Found! One Soul Singer
Sufjan Stevens - The Ascension
The Pretty Things - Bare as Bone, Bright as Blood
Tony Allen & Hugh Masekela – Rejoice
Tower of Power - Step Up
Tricky - Fall to Pieces
Zara Mc Farlane - Songs of an Unknown Tongue
Jason Isbell and Drive By Truckers shine as ever. Blues Pills are dynamic as ever.
Monday, 28 December 2020
Little John – Up and Down, album review
Touching Stones
Released in 1970 (or ’72 depending on your source), this is an album new to me and I have enjoyed listening this morning. They are understandably heavily influenced by rock music of the day, especially horn bands, so opener Lonely Years is very much a Chicago-flavoured song, bright and upbeat – despite its title! – and this continues throughout, strongly, as following Grey-Blue is even more Chicago-driven, here in the vocal as well. Both of these are fine numbers in their own right, and the organ on the latter invokes that other brass touchstone BS&T. There’s an extended guitar solo opening on third Up and Down, and this is a more expansive clone on the Transit Authority template. The later break into saxophone furthers the examples of fine playing, layered it would appear by Flem Brass and Vince Wallace. I like the blues of Wood Grain Alcohol, and Bombay Calling is a requisite illustrative instrumental piece. Penultimate Whirled Piece is perhaps redolent of the jazzfunk of Steely Dan – not wholly, and touching for other influence – and closer New Day / It Appears to Be is a near nine-minute near direct steal from Chicago, but that’s no secret by now, nor a disappointment. Excellent vocal harmonies throughout, CS&N touched on this ending track.
Sunday, 20 December 2020
Some Awe's Best of 2020
The Annual Awe List
Great music from 2020 that I have listened to and enjoyed, this selection tending to those albums I have revisited more than once.
In alphabetical order, rather than ranked. A top three would probably be, in this order and for varying reasons: Springsteen, Dylan and ACDC.
ACDC – Power Up
Bill Fay - Countless Branches
Black to Comm - Oocyte Oil & Stolen Androgens
Bob Dylan - Rough and Rowdy Ways
Bruce Springsteen - Western Stars
Chris Smither - More from the Levee
Fleet Foxes – Shore
Gillian Welch – Boots [all 3 volumes]
Giorgi Mikadze - Georgian Microjamz
Gregory Porter – All Rise
Jonathan Hultén - Chants from Another Place
Kandace Springs - The Women Who Raised Me
Laura Marling - Song for Our Daughter
Marcus King - El Dorado
Mark Lanegan – Straight Songs of Sorrow
Natalie Jane Hill - Azalea
Nils Lofgren Band – Weathered
Ozzy Osbourne - Ordinary Man
Paul McCartney - McCartney III
Pearl Jam - Dance of The Clairvoyants
Randall Bramblett - Pine Needle Fire
Richard Thompson - Bloody Noses EP
Rob Luft - Life Is the Dancer
Robyn Hitchcock - The Man Downstairs; Demos & Rarities
Róisín Murphy - Róisín Machine
Sam Amidon - Sam Amidon
Sam Lee - Old Wow
Simphiwe Dana – Bamako
Shelby Lynne – Shelby Lynne
Yusuf Cat Stevens - Tea For The Tillerman²
26.12.20: Having just revisited this post to tart it up with colour and italics, I want to add that my 'top three' still stands, but this does reflect allegiance and nostalgia as significant indicators.
The point is I should mention how Natalie Jane Hill's Azalea is a great 'new' find for me, and to discover her on a YouTube clip singing one of the album's great tracks Emerald Blue three years ago - solo and in a flourists - I will add that vocal is quite stunning live; Marcus King was my other new-to-me joy, and his earlier albums with a band are dynamite, and one of the most beautiful tracks I have heard in 2020 is Usikhonzile by Simphiwe Dana from her album here in the list.