No Face Music 50

 

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.

No Face Music 49

 

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.

 

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.