music diary 2012

Not my idea this. Playing into my hands though...

Friday 4th May 

• Burt Bacharach: This Is Easy (BBC4 TV documentary) - Got about five minutes into this before I realise I'd seen it before. Worth a second go though to hear again stories of Bacharach's obsessive attention to detail: viz. Cilla's story about the gruelling "Alfie" session involving many (possibly identical) takes and Carole Bayer Sager's account of the frustrations of their songwriting partnership, possibly responsible for their marriage break-up.
• Pizzicato Five: Made in USA (vinyl) - Fellow MOR-sters' 1994 LP, not dusted off for some time. 

Saturday 5th May

• Cocteau Twins: Four Calendar Cafe, Stars and Topsoil (iPhone) - Pat Nevin was on 5Live this morning enthusing about Liz Fraser's upcoming Meltdown gig and that, together with some fan reminiscences on the Guardian website and a three-hour train journey, presented a good opportunity to revisit the non-vinyl end of my Cocteaux collection. 

Sunday 6th May

• Miles Davis: A Different Kind of Blue (Sky Arts TV documentary, including live footage of Isle of Wight Festival 1970) - Came across this while channel-hopping on my Dad's SkyBox. Interesting interviews from collaborators in the fusion-based period up to and including Bitches Brew. 

Monday 7th May

• Emma Pollock: Watch the Fireworks; Gorillaz: Demon Days (iPhone) - Accompanying soundtrack to a gentle ramble in the North Wales countryside. Nice.

Tuesday 8th May

• Nick Drake: Bryter Later (iPhone) - Another train journey. A not-very-original choice of accompaniment to the green fields rolling by the train window. And, as an antidote...
• The Pains of Being Pure at Heart: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Bonus CD (iPhone) - I remember reading an interview with Paul Simon once where he said that he always tries to vary the keys he writes in as it helps him to vary his style and avoid monotony. All the Pains of Being Pure at Heart's songs seem to be in the same key = bit boring.
• Lightships & Snowgoose (Live at the Lexington) - Respective side projects of Teenage Fannies Gerard Love and Raymond McGinley. Preferred the latter although... 

Wednesday 9th May

• Neil Young: "Lotta Love" (YouTube) - ...Lightships did a rather splendid cover of this to bring yesterday evening to a close: it's been playing in my head all morning.
• Richard Hawley: Standing at the Sky's Edge (Spotify) - My favourite album of the year so far, I think. Reckon Alex Petridis's review is a work of art in itself.
• Beach House: "Myth" (Spotify) - Like this lot. New album out. Good. Sound a bit like the Cocteaux (see above)...
• Ebo Taylor: Appia Kwa Bridge (Spotify): By way of contrast, some lively Afrobeat to round things off for today. 

Thursday 10th May

• High Llamas: Snowbug (iPlayer) - I like to stop off in Kennington Park en route to my Thursday job, park my bike and listen to some tunes. Haven't heard this for a while. It's my favourite Llamas album. O'Hagan is a genius, etc etc (see blog ramblings elsewhere on this subject...)
• Kyle Eastwood Band (Live at Ronnie Scott's) - Enjoyable enough, accessible in a jazz kind of way, but maybe I have a problem with celebity offspring making it big? Not that they are by definition void of talent (although sometimes they are). 

Friday 11th May

• Kyle Eastwood: Songs from the Chateau (Spotify); Snowgoose: Sycamore (band website) - another blast for a couple of the week's live music highlights.

Saturday 12th May

• Sounds of the Sixties (Radio 2) - usual mix of classics, obscure gems and, well, tat frankly. Highlights: Skeeter Davies: End of the World, The Settlers: Major to Minor written by the British Bacharach & David, Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent.
• Various programmes (Jazz FM) - there's some good stuff on Jazz FM, I find. On the big band programme at lunch time they played Johnny Dankworth's "Tomorrow's World" theme. Classic.

Sunday 13th May

• Radio clash this evening. On 6Music, Stuart Maconie's Freak Zone, featuring tracks from Portishead's Third album, which I haven't played for a long time. Also: this rather lovely track from, er, Dixie's Death Pool. (You don't get much Abba on the Freak Zone...) Simultaneously, on Radio 2, the first part of Marc Almond's documentary on Jacques Brel. I'll have to fire up the iPlayer for this later in the week...

The End

what's another year

I'm finding it's increasingly difficult to keep up with all the music "out there" and the fact that in November Rough Trade (thanks guys) put together their 100 best albums of the year (count 'em) didn't help. I've already spent hours on these and still haven't got through more than about six or seven...

So in compiling this year's Best Of lists I'm more conscious than ever that there is a load of music a) which I haven't had the chance to do justice to by listening to more than once or twice (to whit KORT: Invariable Heartache, I Am Kloot: Sky At Night), b) which has shown up on my radar but I haven't got round to listening to at all or c) of which I remain blissfully unaware.

So for what it's worth...

TOP 20 ALBUMS (with Spotify links where such exist)

1. Teenage Fanclub – Shadows

2. Gorillaz – Plastic Beach

3. Ben Folds and Nick Hornby – Lonely Avenue

4. Gil Scott Heron – I’m New Here

5. Arcade Fire – The Suburbs

6. Darkstar – North

7. Field Music – Measure

8. The Silver Seas – Chateau Revenge!

9. Edwyn Collins – Losing Sleep

10. Corinne Bailey Rae – The Sea

11. Laura Marling – I Speak Because I Can

12. Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – Before Today

13. Warpaint – The Fool

14. MGMT – Congratulations

15. Beach House – Teen Dream

16. Cathal Coughlan – Rancho Tetrahedron

17. LCD Soundsystem – This Is Happening

18. Olof Arnalds – Innundir Skinni

19. Tender Trap – Dansette Dansette

20. Best Coast – Crazy For You 

Should you be so inclined you can also dip into Spotify for my top 30 tracks of 2010. Not many of them appear on the albums listed above.

As always, further recommendations, violent disagreements and such like are most welcome...

fab four fest

I'm going through one of my periodic Beatles binges at the moment. The Fab Four section of my CD collection runs only from Rubber Soul (1965) onwards so I thought I'd try brushing up on some of the earlier albums of the "Beatlemania" years.

What's brought this on is a British Library event I went to a couple of weeks ago to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the band (It was in 1960 that John, Paul, George, Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best made their first forays into Hamburg clubland). Regaling us with Beatles tales, playing choice tracks and fielding questions are Beatles luminaries Paul du Noyer (author of books on John Lennon and the music of his native Liverpool) and Philip Norman (definitive Beatles Lennon biographer and author of a hefty 864-page tome on Lennon).

Both speakers are at pains to play down the usual stereotypes of Lennon as "Angry Young Man" and McCartney as "Sensitive Soul". Two tracks from the "White" album--Julia and Helter Skelter are played as cases in point. Lennon's early family background is well documented elsewhere and this song for his mother, who died in a car accident when he was seventeen, is full of poetic beauty ("When I cannot sing my heart I can only speak my mind") at odds with the cynical, sometimes spiteful, character who would often appear in interviews.

Similarly, McCartney--famous balladeer of Yesterday, Michelle and The Long and Winding Road--wrote Helter Skelter after reading an interview with Pete Townshend describing their recent single, I Can See for Miles, as the "loudest, rawest, dirtiest song" the Who had ever recorded. Not wanting to be pigeon-holed as a writer of slow songs, he set about trying to write something just as "loud, raw and dirty" for the Beatles. The song certainly provoked a reaction: its supposed prophecy of an apocalyptic war infamously led to it being appropriated by Charles Manson. It has even been hailed in some quarters as an important stage in the development of heavy metal music.

One of the tracks Du Noyer chooses to play is a reminder that, even among the uptempo sing-a-long hits of the first few albums, there are quieter, more reflective songs which hint at Lennon and McCartney's developing genius for songwriting. Clocking in at a sublimely understated 1 minute 57 seconds, I'll Follow the Sun--from the 1964 "Beatles For Sale" album--is a fantastically impressive early example of McCartney's nack for a cleverly crafted melody:



There's no disputing that John and Paul were the creative genuises of the band but I'm struck by the extent to which du Noyer and Norman seem willing to play down the roles of George and Ringo: Norman concedes that Harrison wrote some great songs but "only while he was in the Beatles". I wonder about the extent to which this is true: by the time the Beatles split he had written three whole albums' worth of his own compositions which had hitherto failed to see the light of day. Maybe not many of these were as good as the best of the Beatles. Surely his guitar riffs are worth a mention in dispatches though--I Feel Fine? Paperback Writer?

Similarly, when an audience member brings up Lennon's typically acerbic comment that Starr "wasn't even the best drummer in the Beatles", du Noyer and Norman concede only that Ringo's easy-going personality was a calming influence on the more volatile other band members. They don't make any case for his drumming technique. Aren't there some tracks--particularly in the later years--(Come Together, A Day in the Life) which show Lennon's remark up for the cheap jibe it was?

This was the second Beatles event I've been to at the British Library and like the first it was an entertaining and thought-provoking evening. It's just good to be reminded again what superb songwriters and great musicians the Beatles were.

In a futile attempt to reduce their career to a handful of highlights, may I in conclusion offer the following "top five" Beatles moments:

1. The opening line of Girl, proof that you don't need an intro. Just get on and say what you've got to say.

2. The fugue-like harpsichord solo in In My Life played by George Martin (Is there really anyone else worthy of the official "Fifth Beatle" title?)

3. The final five chords of Please Please Me, the only possible way to end the song.

4. The whole of She's Leaving Home. I once foisted this song on a class of unsuspecting French sixth-formers to get me through an English conversation class. They seemed to enjoy it.

5. The trumpet restatement of the "You Never Give Me Your Money" theme (at 1:52) in the Abbey Road Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End medley, the final track (almost) on the final Beatles album.

Of course, ask me on another day and five different songs would get the vote...

P.S. This interview with Philip Norman gives a flavour of my British Library evening.

lost in france?

Every year I put together a compilation of the my favourite songs of the year to send to my sister as a Christmas present. She has three kids and lives in France so I tend to think that the musical treats which I obsessively pore over on an almost daily basis are pretty much denied to her.

Whether she's bothered about this of course is a different matter. I'm not sure to what extent she's just being polite but she always says thank you to me for sending it. She does now and then pick out the odd track for a special mention so I've no doubt she listens to it. At least once.

Anyway, tonight I've been looking at the iTunes playlist of tracks which I've been adding to during the course of the year. I've burned them to CD and will be putting them in the post to France over the weekend.

I'm listening to them as I type this, and damn, there are some great songs, if I say so myself. Many of them I've already banged on about in these pages, others not. See what you think:

• Prefab Sprout: Let There Be Music
• The Leisure Society: A Short Weekend Begins With Longing
• Fleet Foxes: He Doesn't Know Why
• Niko: Womb
• Brian Eno and David Byrne: Strange Overtones
• Pull In Emergency: In Silence
• Shena: Can't Stop The Rain
• The Third Degree: Mercy
• Shirley Bassey: The Girl From Tiger Bay
• The Leisure Society: The Last of The Melting Snow
• Oh, Atoms: Sugar Mouse
• Howling Bells: Let's Be Kids
• Empire of the Sun: We Are The People
• Rose Elinor Dougall: Start/Stop/Synchro
• Simphiwe Dana: Ndiredi
• The Unthanks: Living By The Water
  
• Prefab Sprout: Music Is A Princess

OR: You can Spotify 'em here.

pick of the pops

Top platters on the Hooley Towers dansette this week (in no particular order)...

• Rose Elinor Dougall - Start/Stop/Synchro
• Phenomenal Handclap Band - 15 to 20
• Leisure Society - Short Weekend (more top bandstand action)
• Rose Elinor Dougall - Another Version of Pop Song
• Third Degree - Mercy
• Marvin Gaye - Let's Get It On (Step Remix)
• Big Star - Turn My Back on the Sun
• Gemma Ray - 100 m.p.h. (in 2nd Gear)
• Howling Bells - Let's Be Kids Again
  

Thanks to Radcliffe and Maconie for most (though not all) of these. Probably need to branch out a bit with my radio listening...

there's a boat that's leaving soon for new york...

...well it's actually Virgin Atlantic Flight VS001, but I'll be on it.

Off the top of my head, a few songs about or from the City Which Never Sleeps...

• Rhapsody In Blue: George Gershwin (see below)
• Take The "A" Train: Duke Ellington & Ella Fitzgerald
• Walk On The Wild Side: Lou Reed
• Life During Wartime: Talking Heads
• Hanging On The Telephone: Blondie
• 12:51: The Strokes
• Spanish Harlem: Aretha Franklin
• Say It Loud, I'm Black And I'm Proud: James Brown
• Fight The Power: Public Enemy
• New Amsterdam: Elvis Costello
• American Tune: Paul Simon
• Living It Up: Rickie Lee Jones
• New York State Of Mind: Billy Joel
• Hey Manhattan: Prefab Sprout

See you on East 17th Street...

best in show

It's that time again:

1. Best albums of 2008 (albums which actually came out this year):

• ELBOW: Seldom Seen Kid - seemed at the time an unadventurous choice as Mercury winner, but having now listened to it, I can't disagree. Classy, understated, tuneful. Every track a gem.
• FLEET FOXES: Fleet Foxes - a great album, but I thought their live performance on "Later" was massively disappointing.
• LAST SHADOW PUPPETS: Age of the Understatement - is there nothing Alex Turner can't do?
• STEREOLAB: Chemical Chords - same as all the other Stereolab albums for the last five years but I think they make some sublime music (see also High Llamas).
• GOLDFRAPP: Seventh Tree - liked her first album, the next two left me cold, a "return to form" then.
• PORTISHEAD: Third - good, but too harrowing to listen to very often.

2. Favourite albums of the year (albums which I listened to loads this year though they actually came out last year, the year before, 10, 20 or 30 years ago...):

• RACHEL UNTHANK & THE WINTERSET: The Bairns
• NICOLE WILLIS & THE SOUL INVESTIGATORS: Keep Reachin' Up - thanks to Cocktails for this tip
• EMMA POLLOCK: Watch the Fireworks
• E.S.T.: Seven Days of Falling
• SCOTT MATTHEWS: Passing Stranger
• MARVIN GAYE & TAMMI TERRELL: Greatest Hits - Motown didn't get any better than this for me
• FIELD MUSIC: Tones of Town
• VARIOUS ARTISTS: Creme de la Creme: Philly Soul Classics and Rarities (again)

3. Favourite tracks of the year:

• DUFFY: Warwick Avenue - this is her one good song
• ADELE: Chasing Pavements - ditto (perhaps a bit harsh)
• TING TINGS: Great DJ - ditto
• LADYHAWKE: Paris Is Burning - er, ditto
• SEBASTIEN TELLIER: Divine - great Eurovision performance, language-related controversy ensued
• ASTEROID GALAXY TOUR: The Sun Ain’t Shining No More - best of Radcliffe and Maconie's records of the week
• SOHA: Tourbillon (Serre-Moi Fort Si Tu M'aimes) - token world music entrant
• RACHEL UNTHANK & THE WINTERSET: Sea Song - I've already waxed lyrical about this: fantastic arrangement, great lyrics and melody, wonderful singing
• BLACK KIDS: Hurricane Jane

4. Gigs of the Year:

• Wychwood Festival (particularly The Blockheads and Emma Pollock)
• Broadstairs Folk Week
• Alan Barnes
• Blue Nile
• High Llamas
• Rachel Unthank & The Winterset
• Richard Hawley
• London Community Gospel Choir
• The Coalporters

Other people have got views on all this too:

• The Guardian
• NME
• Uncut and Mojo Magazines (via Stereogum)
• Q Magazine (via Rollo & Grady)

...and from my esteemed fellow members of the blogging community:

• IndieLondon
• Music Of The Moment
• Mountain 7

See you in 2009...

christmas: enough already

The last of my pre-Christmas YouTube selections just goes to show that even coked-up multi-millionaire rock stars in Beverley Hills can have their festive season spoilt if it's all gone a bit pear-shaped girlfriend-wise...



This is my final "Best of Christmas" line-up then:

1. Jackson 5: Santa Claus is Coming to Town
2. Darlene Love: Winter Wonderland
3. The Ronettes: Sleigh Ride
4. Darlene Love: Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
5. Attic Lights (feat. Cerys Matthews): Santa's Girlfriend
6. Donny Hathaway: This Christmas
7. Aimee Mann: Whatever Happened to Christmas
8. Low: Just Like Christmas
9. Aimee Mann: Christmas Song
10. Carpenters: Merry Christmas Darling
11. Carpenters: Santa Claus is Coming to Town

More Christmas music ideas at Carnival Saloon and 77 Santas, amongst others...

what's another year? (best of 2007)

This year's gongs then go to this lot...

Albums:
1. Arcade Fire: Neon Bible
2. Radiohead: In Rainbows
3. Richard Hawley: Lady's Bridge
4. High Llamas: Can Cladders
5. Candie Payne: I Wish I Could Have Loved You More

Tracks:
1. Radiohead: Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
2. Laura Veirs: Don't Lose Yourself
3. The Bees: Listening Man
4. Richard Hawley: Tonight The Streets Are Ours
5. The Beauty Room: The Weight Of The World
6. Indigo Moss: Swimming
7. Emma Pollock: Paper and Glue
8. Edwyn Collins: You'll Never Know My Love
9. Soulsavers Feat. Mark Lanegan: Revival
10. Charlotte Hatherley: Behave

Gig Of The Year:
Sorry, still haven't got over seeing the Magic Numbers at the Windmill. Edwyn Collins, The Bees and Squeeze also good...

"Best of" albums lists from people who all year get CDs sent to them for nothing and are paid to listen to them (cuh eh?):
- The Word
- Observer Music Monthly
- Gideon Coe (BBC 6 Music)
- NME

- Songlines:

1. Mario Pacheco: Clube De Fado
2. Andy Palacio and The Garifuna Collective: Watina
3. Fanfare Ciocarlina: Queens and Kings
4. Trilok Gurtu and Arke String Quartet: Arkeology
5. Justin Adams and Juldeh Camara: Soul Science
6. Selim Sesler: Anatolian Wedding
7. Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba: Segu Blue
8. Tinariwen: Aman Iman
9. Orchestra Baobab: Made in Dakar
10. Various Artists: Sevdalinka

...and some lists (including mp3 files) from the sound bites blog.

I'm off to the shops then to get stocked up with some of the stuff I've missed...

french toast

Inspired by an excellent BBC4 documentary on Jacques Brel a couple of weeks ago, I feel moved to share my current top 10 French songs:

1. Etienne Daho: Soudain
2. Constance Amiot: Clash dans le tempo
3. a.s. dragon: Mais pas chez moi
4. Montgomery: Champagne
5. Autour de lucie: Chanson sans issue (Ne vois-tu pas)
6. Serge Gainsbourg: Requiem pour un con
7. Francoise Hardy: Tous les garcons et les filles
8. Brel: Marieke
9. Charlotte Gainsbourg: 5:55
10. Air: La Femme d'Argent

whatever

Aimee Mann @ IndigO2, 27th July 2007

Ten reasons why Aimee Mann is cool:

1. Her songs from "Magnolia" are great (never heard them before tonight)
2. She has collaborated with Elvis Costello
3. She plays electric bass, not just strummy folk guitar like other women singer/songwriters do
4. For a bit she sang with Squeeze
5. She takes requests from the audience, then apologises profusely when she forgets the words to two songs she wrote herself
6. She's nearly as old as I am
7. She thinks Posh & Becks are crap
8. She appeared in "The West Wing"
9. She appeared in "The Big Lebowski"
10. She is better than the Scissor Sisters

Read some fawning accounts of the gig on the A.M. message board.

radio radio

...It's better than the "idiot lantern". *

This month's top 10 digital music radio stations:

10. Radio Ye-Ye: superbly tacky French 60s pop

9. BBC Radio London: A shadow of its former incarnation as GLR but Sean Rowley, Robert Elms and DJ Ritu still flying the musical flag

8. Live365 blackgospelradio: does what it says on the tin
7. BBC Radio 2, step forward Radcliffe & Maconie
6. XFM: good music but a limited playlist and too many ads!
5. Resonance FM: interesting mix of obscurer stuff
4. BBC Radio 3: Kershaw/Duran (see earlier waxings lyrical)
3. Radio Nova: see also 5 above
2. Chill: my latest discovery. No DJs (good), but no-one to tell you what music is being played (bad)
1. BBC 6 music: still the best of the bunch.

I know, I should get out more...

* copyright Radcliffe & Maconie (see no 7)

computer love

For me, the advent of the music download has finally made buying singles much more worthwhile. On vinyl you always got a B-side which was usually as weak as the A-side was brilliant, and on CD you got even more unwanted tracks and sometimes three or four different mixes of the same song. I don't think anything can make you fed up with a song as quickly as listening to it in four successively more bizarre versions.

Hooray then for the download: a single song, no remixes, no feeble B-side filler. And you can play a stack of your fave songs one after the other without getting out of your seat...

No surprise that I feel the need to share my top 5 download singles of 2007 so far:
1. Klaxons: Golden Skans
2. Laura Veirs: Don't Lose Yourself
3. Soulsavers (feat. Mark Lanegan): Revival
4. Charlotte Hatherley: Behave
5. Cherry Ghost: Mathematics.
(NB: must be played in this order. I say NO to the random play i-Pod.)

Yes, they're all available on myspace or youtube, but at only 79p a shot at 7digital.com, why not shell out and hang the expense...

african dance

Splashed out on a new pc the other day so last night I thought I'd put my new CD burner to the test. Rooting through the African music in my CD collection, I put together a compilation of some of my favourite tracks:

1. Tony Allen: Isenla (from "Lagos No Shaking")
2. Letta Mbulu: Mahlalela (from "Hugh Masekela presents the Chisa Years")
3. Manu Dibango: Sun Explosion (from the "Very Best Of")
4. Femi Kuti: Truth Don Die
5. Femi Kuti feat. Jaguar Wright (both from the "Best Of")
6. Emmanuel Jal & Abdel Gadir Salim: Baai (from "Ceasefire")
7. Four Brothers: Vimabyi
8. Four Brothers: Rudo Imoto (both from the "Best Of")
9. Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens: Nyamphemphe (from the "Best Of")
10. Letta Mbulu: Macongo (from "Hugh Masekela presents the Chisa Years")
11. Tony Allen: Kilode
12. Tony Allen: Moyeye (both from "Lagos No Shaking")
13. Toumani Diabate's Symmetric Orchestra: Single (from "Boulevard de l'Independence")

Next week: I buy an iPod...

what's another year?

The members of the "Best Albums of 2006" Jury have finally completed their deliberations:

1. Arctic Monkeys: Whatever people say I am...
- I've already waxed lyrical about this. As far as I can see (hear), the longer the year has gone on, the more pale imitations have come to light (step forward Jamie T, Fratellis...)
2. Guillemots: Through the window pane. Ditto re waxing lyrical.
3. Cerys Matthews: Never Said Goodbye.
4. Editors: The Back Room. Released in 2005 but made the Mercury shortlist in 2006. Shades of the Chameleons?
5. Donald Fagen: Morph the Cat. Usual highly-polished Steely Dan fare.
6. Scritti Politti "White bread and black beer". Listened to this a few times but still getting the hang of it.

single

December 19th? Must be time for my singles of the year:

Leading pack:
1. Dirty Pretty Things: Bang Bang You're Dead
2. Cat Power: The Greatest (or was that last year?)
3. Corinne Bailey Rae: Put Your Records On
4. The Killers: When You Were Young
5. The Young Knives: The Decision

Also-rans:
The Feeling: Sewn
Peter Bjorn & John: Young Folks
Gnarls Barkley: Crazy
Camera Obscura: Hey Lloyd Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken
Albert Hammond Jnr: 101
Arctic Monkeys: When The Sun Goes Down

See last year's choices here.

Album choice coming soon...

daft punk is playing at my house

In fact Daft Punk are taking a break this month. Standing in are...

- Cerys Matthews: Seed Song
- The Young Knives: The Decision ("I am the Prince of Wales!")
- Phoenix: Consolation Prizes
- Toumani Diabate and the Symmetric Orchestra: Single
- The Feeling: Sewn (File under "Guilty Pleasures" *)
- Cathal Coughlan: Black River Falls (see also below)
- Candie Payne: I Wish I Could Have Loved You More
- Arctic Monkeys: A Certain Romance

* Their myspace page lists their influences as ELO, Supertramp, 10 C.C. and the Carpenters!

our favourite shop II

Did a big trawl of the downstairs racks in HMV Oxford Street today. This is where they have what they call their "specialist" categories: easy listening, musicals, classical, soundtracks, folk, world music and jazz. Picked up a few choice CDs:

1. Huw Warren & Lleuwen Steffan: Duw A Wyr (God Only Knows) - I'd been intrigued by this since I saw a review of it in "Time Out" a few months ago: Welsh hymns sung in Welsh by a solo woman singer to jazz piano accompaniments. Probably not going to take the charts by storm but I like it. (Warren was June Tabor's accompanist at the gig I went to a while ago.)

2. Vashti Bunyan: Just another diamond day - From the "folk" racks. Been on my shopping list for a while. This was the album she made in 1970, released on CD in 2000 and now even available as an MP3 download. Doesn't seem right...

3. Tony Allen: Lagos no shaking - Top class Afrobeat from Fela Kuti's ex-drummer and his band. Gets a good write up in OMM too.

4. Astrud Gilberto: The Genius of Astrud Gilberto - 51 tracks (count 'em) for £5.99, got to be done. I can throw my old Greatest Hits cassette away now.

put your records on

This month I have mostly been listening to:
- a load of folk music: June Tabor, Norma Waterson, Fairport Convention, following my recent spate of folk gigs...
- some mbira pieces which I'm trying to learn to play
- the Arctic Monkeys. Massive hype in the press I know but these boys are pretty good...
- the radio (my usual staples: Charlie Gillett, the Freak Zone, also an interesting Radio 2 documentary on music and the 1980s miners' strike)
- Corinne Bailey Rae: just a great pop song. This person is spot on with her comments.

single bed

OK, top singles of 2005:

The rules: I'm not allowed to include tracks from my Top 10 albums . I also reserve the right to change this list if I remember a really good song from this year which I haven't included.

The leading pack:
1. Annie - Heartbeat (This bloke thinks so too.)
2. Amerie - 1 Thing (I also heard a bizarre version of this by Elbow on Radio 1.)
3. Richard Hawley - Coles Corner
4. Athlete - Wires
5. The Go! Team - Ladyflash

Lagging behind:
Coldplay - Speed of Sound
Franz Ferdinand - Walk Away
Kaiser Chiefs - This is the Modern World
Kanye West - Golddigger
Kate Bush - King of the Mountain
The Strokes - Juicebox
Bloc Party - Two More Years

I'm sure there's loads of stuff out there I've missed. I don't listen to much Radio 1. Also, there are lots of goodish songs I've heard from guitarry bands like Maximo Park, The Bravery, The Rakes, Interpol, Editors, etc etc but maybe not distinctive enough to stand out among the best of the year. I think the Bloc Party track is the best of this bunch.