ALBUM CLUB #6

With over 24 hours to spare, the poster for Album Club #6:

This week's meeting, featuring The Specials – The Specials and Santogold – Santogold (in Spotify and YouTube playlists respectively) will - if you haven't already gathered - be the last of this initial cycle, with Albums Club resuming later in the year. Clubbers should do their best to listen to to the albums before we meet: at 6pm, at the Bend in L. Fell.

Album Club Guide #4

However overdue, a belated review is better than none at all, so if you can cast your minds back to Album Club #4's blues-rock-based revelry - where you might rightly have felt conned by the poster's green pencil pledge of blogged reviews - I will presently extricate myself from hock with the promised blurbs (below).

The Rolling Stones- Sticky Fingers (1971)
Being a Rolling Stone must have been taking its toll by 1971's Sticky Fingers, after court cases, jail, death, Altamont and persistent narcotics abuse. Despite all this they managed to create a touchstone in classic rock albums. It is, in fact, this refelection, the weariness, the snarl of breaking rebellion that makes Sticky Fingers so fundamental to rock's blueprint. the opening track towers, sexual and strung like your typical bite, Jagger barely noticing himself strutting on past the Beatles' demise. From there in in though, the swaggering is muted: the coarse drift of 'Sister Morphine', the flits and strains of 'Can't You Hear Me Knocking', the wistful echoes of Gram Parsons filtering through 'Wild Horses' (as simple and perfect a statement as can be). The 60s were dead and the 70s were best entered in a worn-out overdose of ennui. Mick Taylor, making his fully-fledged debut, folds in comfortably enough, his guitar glimmering in certain solos and codas and the Warhol-designed cover envelopes the whole thing in a much-needed cheek. After such a cohesive benchmark as this, who would've thought it possible they could follow it up with the equally key Exile on Main St?

The Dead Weather- Horehound (2009)
Jack White may or may not've played dice with Ol' Nick but he has without doubt become the closest thing to the blues since blues-rock was knitted for your birthday. His eye for an image and his instinct for scuzzed-up simplicity have already created two successes, and this week we look at the third attempt. As much a vehicle for ex-Kill Alison Mosshart, The Dead Weather brood, skeet and collide on swamp-water porches and fill stadia at the same time. The blues can be a tender creature or a blind rage and White has proven, in his most renowned incarnation, to be capable of both - Horehound is not shy on variety either but if you're looking for heart-warming nostalgia or anthemic lo-fi yelps then you better cling to your copy of White Blood Cells. Not that they should be compared o' course. This album does stride but without being cocky, it shows off a little wihout making you jealous, it's black enough to drink snakebites and black to, but it's not gothic. It's a confident stamp on a genre bypassed by bespectacled hipsters; hats off to it.

Album Club Guide #6

Well Album Clubbers, the autumn hiatus dawns blearily on the horizon and with it Album Club #6. As the evenings grow longer and the cracks in the pavement ever colder and damper a Jamaican inspired edition may seem somewhat misjudged but neither of this week's spotlights smell of coconut and cannabis, far from it in fact.

Our vintage vinyl here is none other than The Specials' disaffected debut Specials (1979). Its sharp vitriol, spat in the face of urban failings, echoes in grim bounds through the concrete clubs and dole queues of today as much as it might've when the 80s broke in. An appropriation of Buster-like rhythm serendipitously infused with punk's bad temper, it frequently finds itself plinthed as the definitive slice of ska. But despite its bright covers, Costello's warm touch and the appearance of the totemic Rico Rodriguez (all catching Kudos by the 'bone-full), this is miles more Coventry than the Caribbean. It is wry. It is casually hostile. And in all its observations, its bitter mouth- it is British.

This might make the whole thing sound rather depressing: teenage pregnancies, failing marriages, racism, bitches and piss but it's all delivered with a wiry energy, coated in hooks and bits of brass. Writhing on an album more like a gig, 'It's Up to You', 'Blank Expression' and 'Little Bitch' all make perfect sense now because albums rarely make as much sense as this.

Such a comfortable incorporation of Jamaican technique is a strong feature on our next cut: Santogold's Santogold (2008). A former vocalist with a ska band named Stiffed, Santi White and her cohorts cast a net far wider than ska alone: hip-hop holds up steady, punk pushes in, electronica fulfils more than embellishes the picture but the striking thing about the record is that its crust and core are pure unpestered pop. Okay, not every track is a perfect single, all solitaire cut, but there are more than your fair share of glittering highlights. The pound and swell of the album's opener 'L.E.S. Artistes' crosses fingers among lush synths, the sweet 'Lights Out' is neither gigantic nor tame, 'Say Aha' and 'Shove It' show off White's versatility. 'Creator' with its stuttering beat and sung-spoke delivery, and already familiar from somewhere else, is both slightly unnerving and pretty catchy.

It might also be the main reason finding a review of this album without reference to M.I.A. is so unmanageable- but originality is not lacking and the differences are in-your-face enough. Not to tow the line for too long but Arular & Kala come over more cut and paste than Santogold's less angular blends. Yeah, they both share common collaboraters, have a wide range of inspiration and successfully mix genres like they were made to be mixed but the appeal of one isn't necessarily the charm of the other.
Overall the album is a confident debut and a rewarding listen.

Album Club Poster #5

Here we are, albeit later than planned: a freshly scanned look at last edition's poster.

Album Club Guide #5

Without fail, the middle of September brings with it a desperate refusal to let summer go, the worry that you haven't made the best of it as well as the faded nostalgia of every previous year as you catalogue the latest amidst barely browning leaves and misty-eyed regret, readying your pencil case for the traditional start of school.
This week, Album Club does just that.

We say goodbye to summer with Miracle Fortress's 2007 debut LP 'Five Roses'. Unaware of this album's existence until brought up by #5's guest host, I've only had chance to spin it twice and instantly it reminds me (almost aptly) of the first two album club albums. The title instrumental echoes synths like something I'd forgotten or a moomin and I found myself watching questionably dubbed cartoons on Channel four before my parents woke up. Never has Brian Wilson been so reinvoked as he has been over the past few years of post-animal collective indie, to the point that I hope Wilson is sat somewhere, blanket draped over his lap, being played these records under the illusion they're his and feeling content with his place in music history.

It was Wilson himself who regarded our second album Rubber Soul as elevating the album to the forefront of pop craftsmanship. Introspection, hesitation and reminiscence blend far beyond the formulaic romance of collarless jackets and merseybeats. Whether it was motown or Dylan or the freedom of complete creative control this time, Rubber Soul is lyrically unlike the pop of 1965. It's exploration of sound (sitars, affected and effected piano) hardly feels noteworthy from today's listening station but only because they were successful enough to become part of popular music's foundations. The record lopes wistfully, sighs heavily and wraps you in a brown paper apt for the turning of autmn. It is easy to forget how resonant songs can be when you've taken them for granted.


Additional note: Album Club #5's poster has been the victim of circumstance but I can assure you that it is several stitches (literally) away from being blogged. I must apologize for the lateness.

ALBUM CLUB #5

The meetings are stacking up, almost faster than they can be blogged. But blogged they are, including this week's offering: Album Club #5 Hosted By Christopher Paterson. This week's records are the Beatles' Rubber Soul and Mystery Fortress' Five Roses. The latter is available to listen to in its entirety on Spotify, here: Miracle Fortress – Five Roses. Rubber Soul is not easily available online; members will in this instance have to listen to one of the copies in their personal music collections.

Album Clubbers should do their best to give both albums a listen before tomorrow evening, when our meeting will take place at the Croft.

A poster is currently in development.

ALBUM CLUB #4

With hours to spare, the poster for Album Club #4:

It's entirely possible that there may be more information to follow.

Album Club Update

Plans are afoot already for Album Club #4. Managing the franchise this week is Jack Haddad, himself fitting comfortably within Album Club Constituent Guidelines 21, 23 and 64. Jack will be hosting the event this Saturday at his residence. We will be listening to the Stones! Spotifyable here: The Rolling Stones – Sticky Fingers and, as if that wasn't enough, the Dead Weather! Again, Spotify brings home the bacon: The Dead Weather – Horehound.

Jack is to be commended for his choices and hospitality (to whatever extent members see fit). Clubbers should, of course, try to listen to both Albums as soon and as often as possible prior to meeting.

More to follow.