Day 26 - From Africa to France and back again

Acoustic Ladyland - Last Chance Disco
It's jazz Jim, but not as we know it! It's all very odd, very jazz (elements of the dreaded "free jazz" in there too) but underpinned with some driving beats, electric guitars, and synthesiser samples. Strange doesn't come close, but it's also rather good listening whilst maintaining a ferocious intensity of sound. I'm not entirely convinced by the band changing key whilst the sax continues to play in the same key, but it gets really heavy in places with distorted guitars. Welcome, Jazz, to the 21st century. And what's this? Blast beats?? It's like thrash jazz, a sub-genre of the scene I never thought existed - go on, throw in some shredding and lose the saxophone and we're onto a winner here. It's raucous, noisy, and I have to see rather entertaining (although you could lose the free jazz parts for me)
Standout Tracks: Remember, High Heel Blues, Nico


Across 110th Street (OST)
First of the 1000 that is a soundtrack to a film, and I must admit a film I have not seen. It's all very busy motown style stuff, unfortunately the copy I have procured is a little scratchy and skips in places so its making it a little hard to listen to. The bits I am hearing though are upbeat funk and jazz style stuff, and there is a wealth of musical talent on show. Just can't finish it I am afraid thanks to all the stuttering and skipping.
Standout Tracks: Nothing played in its entirety to make a decision.


Mahmoud Ahmed - Ethiopiques vol. 7
Well. What to say about it. It's definitely different, a very eastern flavour to the vocals which is cool, underpinned with lots of horns and a very good guitar player. Lots of tempo and time changes, syncopation, which lends a very jazz feel to the record. It's all quite entertaining actually, very jazzy, very "Islamic" sounding (think of the call to prayer played by Miles Davis and you're halfway there). Not a lot to say about this really ... it's all a bit different and entertaining, and the blend of eastern and western styles is pretty cool, but it leaves me puzzled as to whether or not I like it that much or not since it all gets a bit much sometimes.
Standout Tracks: Not so sure ...

Air - Moon Safari
Alright I will admit that I have been avoiding this one. The only time I have ever found this album mildly entertaining was in my slightly more youthful years and decided I'd try questionable tobacco based substances. That particular period lasted about a week, but this album featured very heavily. Anyway, fifteen years on here it is again with all its wierd electronic sounds and its surprisingly addictive beats. It's not a bad album at all, but best served up with beer or some other mind numbing substance to fully appreciate. Otherwise it's just a fairly mild and inoffensive couple of guys noodling around on their keyboards for an hour with no real purpose or goal. Although must say there is some super guitar work in "All I need", if you can ignore the annoying French accent on the vocalist.
Standout Tracks: Sexy Boy, Kelly watch the stars, All I need, Ce Matin La (for that cheesy classic French sound)

Day 25 - A return to the 1980s

Adam and the Ants - Kings of the Wild Frontier
Another album I know quite well, having owned a copy on 12" vinyl back in the day. New Romantics ... barking mad, but good music! Hard to categorise, every song seems to try something new. In a way, despite sounding of its time (probably Adam Ant's voice ... perpetually locked in the 80s with classics like Stand and Deliver) it's a fresh recording, and feels like a real experimental, "Let's give it a go!" type of record. There are rock and roll influences, driving marching beats, great vocals (not just Ant himself), and not a smattering of rock guitars across the record. I'm realiably informed (by Wikipedia no less) that the drum sound is "Burundi", and its the defining style of the record and about the only thing that one song takes from the last one. Very enjoyable quirky album.
Standout Tracks: Antmusic, Killer in the Home, Magnificent Five, Jolly Roger


ABC - The Lexicon of Love
Excellent 80s fair again. I followed up A-Ha with this one, although I am not as familiar with ABC as the previous album (with the exception of the singles they released of course, although I do vaguely recall owning an ABC album at one point on 12"). A little edgier than A-Ha, and a lot more guitars over this one. Again, superb songcrafting - what was it about the 80s that produced so many great songwriters? Just a bit punchier than A-Ha, with those classic 80s guitar stabs, but with the addition of some sax and horns thrown in as well. ABC seem to be in a hurry on this album, is about the only way I can desribe the driving nature of the music. It's high tempo stuff, and pulls you through it addictively as it goes. Great little album, that aspires to higher things and often hits them.
Standout Tracks: Poison Arrow, Tears are not Enough, The look of love (of course!)


A-Ha - Hunting High and Low
Ah the 1980s! My favourite decade. Everything was so simple back then, and the only problem a teenage bloke needs to work out is which girl to chase after next. Things have got a lot more complex since then, but this music really takes me back to my carefree days. It's pure synth pop, and Morten Harket's voice - so woefully underrated due to his good looks and all that goes with that - perfectly counterpoints the keyboards. Beautifully crafted songs, and I can still remember all the lyrics having not listened to this in twenty years! Had a profound effect on me this album, even in those heady thrash days of the late 1980s (my music of choice), and listening to it again reminds me so much of my carefree teenage years. Just a pleasure to listen to. In fact, this is one album that will not be deleted when I finish up, but go right into my music collection and stay there for all time.
Standout Tracks: Seriously, all of them. This is an album you should not miss.


This was a great day for music! Sometimes I listen to a couple of new albums and I am left feeling rather empty afterward thanks to the music being a little too "out there" for me to enjoy, or just basically being crap. Not today though. It helped that the music was that of my teenage years, and brought back so many memories with smiles, but I honestly thing that the art of crafting a song reached a peak in the 1980s. Both A-Ha and ABC stood out for their sheer brilliance in songwriting, and Adam and the Ants was (as it always has been) wonderfully quirky and enjoyable.

There isn't the same "innocence" to the music as there is in stuff from the 50's, 60's and even the 70's as by now people are making music in the 1980s to make money as much as doing it for the love of making music, but there is a still an integrity to the music, particularly in the case of Adam and the Ants.

Tomorrow will be different ... some wierd world music to listen to. But I've often enjoyed that sort of thing in the past on this odd journey so who knows what'll happen.

Day 24 - The Revenge of the Kenny G

Jan Garbarek - 12 Moons
A curious record. One which I have no idea whether I am enjoying it or not. Light and airy, almost science fiction like musical landscapes with a drifting saxophone over the top. The music is almost other worldy in its nature, and conjures up images of wierd landscapes inhabited by wierd creatures and colours. At least this is true of the opening track (Summer/Winter). Kind of like listening to an Isaac Asimov book in music. I am brought crashing back to earth with a rather beautiful Hebrew (I assume) rendition in "Psalm", very nice indeed. But then its back off into the universe again with more alien musicalscapes - the alto saxophone is rather a haunting sound. I have no idea whether I like this not, I have heard a lot worse (see yesterday) and a lot better, although the longer it goes on the more I am getting the cheesy Kenny G vibe from the music (and that is not a "good thing", dear reader).
Standout Tracks: Psalm, Darvanan (both for the eastern flavours)

Day 23 - Er ... wait ... what?

Egberto Gismonti - Live at the Berlin Jazz Festival
Not sure what to expect here, but it begins with a chap speaking a rather long monologue in German before Mr Gismonti finally takes to the stage amidst polite applause. The music then begins with a strangely dissonant piano "tune" that alternates between bizarre modal stuff and what you might call conventional music. After the odd opening piano track he moves onto his guitar, and boy can he play. Whether it's musically any good is open to debate, but his technique is breathtakingly fast and clean. It then descends into random noise making and talking gibberish over someone urinating into a flute. Not good, not good. The audio equivalent of going to the Tate Modern art gallery. When he gets going its not bad, a nice latin mix with jazz dissonance - it's all the arsing around I can do without. There's only five tracks on this album, but they all last about twelve minutes so this is a long hour ...
Standout Tracks: Um ...

Day 22 - Yawn, snore ... wake me up when its over

Gang Starr - Step in the Arena
Great - hip hop. Not as offensive as some I have listened to. Don't get me wrong I don't object to profanity in music, a lot of the metal I normally listen to is riddled with it, but laid back beats and rhymes don't mix well with profanity for me. That said, there's not a lot on this record, and the lyrics seem to be well thought out and poetic in nature - reminds me of a Rakim album I used to listen to when I went through a strange hip hop phase some years back. Repetitive beats, monologue vocals, the lyrics are about the only thing of interest on this album. After reading the Wiki article, it seems these chaps were into the Gods and Earths scene in New York, as was Rakim, so that's probably where the similarity comes from. "What you want this time" has some nice jazz touches to it, but other than that, this is another classic example of a dull hip hop album.
Standout Tracks: Who's gonna take the weight, What you want this time, As I read my S-A