2. Have One On Me - Joanna Newsom [2010]

Ladies and gentlemen, 2010's songwriter nonpareil. An embarrassment of riches over three CDs. Nary a smidgeon of padding in this plush divan.

The Kate Bush comparisons seem increasingly bang on...in a good way. Though the smart-arse citation is disreputable uncle, Roy Harper.

C'mon, you need this in your life.

Oddi wrth y brawd

12. War War War - Country Joe McDonald [1971]

Thinking of Woody Guthrie, Tonight I'm Singing Just For You, Hold On It's Coming, Paris Sessions. Early 70s Country Joe is good Country Joe, and partial to a concept.

From this period comes War War War based on poems of Robert W. Service, "bard of the Yukon" (1874 - 1958). Service served with an ambulance crew in World War I and his poetry deals with duty and sacrifice as much as waste and futility. 

Yet may it not be, crime and war

But efforts misdirected are.

And if there's good in war and crime

There may be in my bits of rhyme,

My songs from out the slaughter mill:

So take or leave them as you will.

Room for ambiguity gives egress to Country Joe whose commitment to supporting Vietnam veterans is unwavering. Blaming soldiers for war is like blaming firefighters for fire.

So you'll live, you'll live, Young Fellow My Lad,

In the gleam of the evening star,

In the wood-note wild and the laugh of the child,

In all sweet things that are.

And you'll never die, my wonderful boy

While life is noble and true:

For all our beauty and hope and joy

We will owe to our lads like you.

All lyric poetry and more at Country Joe's Place.

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Tower of Love - Jim Noir [2005]

Quirky English garden melody in classic psych pop auteur vein. Nice.

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Lolita Chick '68 - Jacqueline Taïeb [2001]

Unnecessarily prurient title says more about CD provenance (Japan release) than Madamoiselle Taïeb's toothsome  yé-yé , SSW, funkily grooved stylings.  

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Pacific Ocean Blue - Dennis Wilson [1977]

Non-musician bon vivant burn out Dennis shows moribund mid-70s Mike (Hate) Love Beach Boys how to make a classic: heart, innocence and fearlessness. And Flaming Lips not so original after all.


With extra disc Bambu [The Caribou Sessions]. 

Oddi wrth y brawd

Born To Be With You - Dion [1975]

Stratospheric Dion-Spector collaboration. Tell you straight, J. Spaceman's trademark kitchen-sink Spiritualized dirge started here.

"He called me. That was the beginning. When we met for the first time there was an immediate affinity between us, a sudden and rare feeling that we had known each other all our lives. Three days later I was standing in the studio, surrounded by the Spector wall of sound. The excitement was spontaneous, jolting. I was an integral part of some musical magic. And for those intense weeks nothing outside that studio anywhere else on God's earth meant anything."

 - Dion DiMucci

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Take A Picture - Margo Guryan [1968]

Dreamy, groovesome soft pop classic. Street fighting men be damned.

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No Other - Gene Clark [1974]

Bare, big celestial malaise. Fear. Paranoia.

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no other

The Royal Tenenbaums [2002 re-release]

A soundtrack borrowing two songs from Nico's Chelsea Girl, a Self-Portrait Dylan gem, and Nick Drake's Fly  signals class and a coherent if dour chamber pop insouciance. Thematic coherence cuts closer to the bone on a fine Elliott Smith track about suicide (!) and recalling co-writer Owen Wilson's own "cry for help" some years back. For all that uplifting, and a must listen for anyone with a yen for John Cale's sweet sad viola playing (think parts Paris 1919 and Songs For Drella). Incidental compositions by Mark Mothersbaugh (a long long way from Devo) hold up splendidly.

Oddi wrth y brawd
Let's shag ass

Live at the Sixth and I Synagogue March 23 2010 - Joanna Newsom

Between song banter alone enough to smite low cynics n clowns. And enough never enough with JN.


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you and me bess

Blank Unstaring Heirs of Doom - Jana Hunter [2005]

Ephemeral androgynous reverb doused slow burn melody. Sublime a capella to boot.

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lonely hunter

Dreaming With Alice - Mark Fry [1972]

Do Good's deeds live on? No, Evil's deeds do, O God. Touchstones. Lewis Carroll, Alan Watts, R. D. Laing, C.S. Lewis, John Everett Millais, Albert Hoffmann and Donovan Leitch. Pure class and oh so very easy to slip under its mimsy spell.

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call of semordnilap

"Cymru, Lloegr a Llanhari" - Ddy Bobs

Like some thoughtful Euros Childs inviting Sufjan Stevens in for a cuppa and semi-serious ontological chat. Ddy Bobs has got summat to say and he's not giving up. Acoustic taste 'o tasty growers. Get this fellah's stuff at Welsh music specialists Sadwrn.

Pencampwr... Dal ati Pritch!


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o hyfryd fyd

Paint a Lady - Susan Christie [1970]

Lightly psychedelicised, mildly experimental folk rock. Eschews gossamer flummery typical of period ssw acid-folk genre in favour of open throttle roister doister. Well worth a shufti.

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today, where's my mind?

Fluttering Briar - Damien Youth [1984]

Eerie teenage home recordings. Darkling whimsy in acoustic Hitchcock / Barrett / Bowie tradition. Gauche with uncanny knack to zero in on melodic heart of each song. 

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visitation

The Secret Life of the Love Song & The Flesh Made Word - Nick Cave

Lecture 1: el Cueva's field guide to "what is" & "how to write" a love song. Written for 1998 Vienna Poetry Festival and performed at London's Royal Festival Hall 1999, this is a studio recording including piano & voice West Country Girl, People Ain't no Good, Sad Waters, Love Letter, and Far From Me.

Lecture 2: Cave, Christ and the creative imagination. BBC recording 1996. Revealing stuff.


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logos

13 - Lee Hazlewood [1972]

Whereat dirty ol' Lee revels in a decadence that passeth all understanding. Perfect! Brass blusters and zings like sleazed up opium fiends (whatever that is). Uh, look out! She may look like like a lady but oh brother.... Lee sings vignetted folderol about getting high, laid then buggering off sharpish.  Just thought you'd like t'know.

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nabisco cheesewad

Veedon Fleece - Van Morrison [1974]

"Forgotten masterpiece"? Not in this parish. Companion piece to Astral Weeks in stream of consciousness channeled songwriting and off the cuff delivery (plenty choice vocal tics and trademark mannerisms to be had). Journeying westwards as ever, into pastoral Irish tradition, invoking poets -  Blake and the Eternals - and citing metaphysics - discussing Baba, no less - before this became depressingly rote in yer man's oeuvre. Still possible to care about the quest and, lest we gush, get swept away.


Goin’ as much with the river as not.

Oddi wrth y brawd

fair play

Bullinamingvase - Roy Harper [1977]

As Mr Harper basks in warmest media glow he's enjoyed for quite some while, y brawd offers an uncharacteristically cheery set recorded, mostly, on then newly acquired Hereford sheep farm. Perhaps it was the Farmer’s Weekly Roy feature - odd but true - that alerted Macca and Linda to woolly livestock mutual appreciation as both are along for the ride, adding uncredited guest vocals.


Roy mellow and reminiscing; still Roy trenchant and biting. 

Oddi wrth y brawd

rolling spliffs for capt. kirk at the vinegar strokes of doom

Have One On Me - Joanna Newsom [2010]

Ladies and gentlemen, 2010's songwriter nonpareil. Embarrassment of riches over three CDs. Plush divan and nary an ounce of padding.


C'mon, you need this in your life.

Oddi wrth y brawd
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