song of the week 26: cornershop - biro pen

It's been a while since we heard from Cornershop. Yesterday I picked up their excellent new album for a very reasonable price from one of my favourite CD shops.

As is the way of these things, a while ago Brill Records in Exmouth Market--for it is they of whom I speak--were obliged to diversify into bagels and coffees in order to keep their business going, but they still care about music. They've still got a good selection (rock, indie, soul, folk, jazz, world music), still pick out the best new releases and display them prominently alongside reviews from recent newspapers cut out and pasted up on a noticeboard.

Their genial and usually upbeat proprietor tells me though that sadly sales of CDs are now quite few and far between. Shame.

If you're passing by why not pop in and treat yourself to some new music?



End of commercial break...

cover versions

Had a post-work CD shopping binge this evening at the excellent Flashback Records in Essex Road. You know how it is on a Friday.

Pretty pleased with my haul, which included the following two fine examples of Brazilian cover art:

They'd look even better on those big record sleeves we used to get...

songs of the week 13 & 14 respectively: helixir - summertime; pro celebrity golf & jay glaze - three sinister syllables (part 2)

So... you set out from work on a Friday evening, it's nice and sunny, you start walking east. Like a moth to a flame, Rough Trade East record shop draws you in. There's nothing you can do about it.

You go inside, stare at the displays, maybe recognise a handful of names (the Strokes have got a new album out, you've heard of them!). You wonder: given that you spend so much time listening to music, how is it that hardly any of these names ring a bell with you?

You do a tour of the listening posts. The staff have added some blurb to a label on the front of each CD but you realise that this in no way describes the music within. It's commendable in some ways that there's no convoluted pigeon-holing ("acid/metal/P-Funk", "thrash lounge"), no lazy comparisons with other bands ("think Cocteau Twins meet Chic", "part Radiohead, part Right Said Fred"). But this can be frustrating when you're trying to get to grips with a lot of music in the space of a half-hour shopping trip.

Anyway, you pick some band names you like the sound of and listen to the opening few tracks of three of four of the albums... Hmmm. You've heard some interesting left-field electronica on Tom Ravenscroft's 6Music show lately so you grab a couple of CDs by artists you've never heard of and which sound... well, different. Face it, you could do with plugging that gap in the dubstep section of your collection.

You reach for your wallet and head for the till...

summat for nowt

Fopp Records have two of my favourite albums (Grand Prix and Songs From Northern Britain by Teenage Fanclub) in a box set. They are selling it for £3. This is scandalous. Consumers should not be allowed to have great music at grotesquely reduced prices like this.

subway sect

Few stones left unturned on the New York tourist trail at the weekend, but I didn't in the end get to go to any gigs during my visit. I did, though, hear a great soul voice at one of the 14th Street subway stations on Saturday afternoon. It turned out to be a member of a band called Acapella Soul, singing and playing a keyboard.

I know the name because I was one of the six or seven onlookers during the five or so minutes between trains who stumped up $10 for one of his (their) CDs. For me, buying an album on the strength of a single hearing is invariably a let-down (spontaneity and atmosphere of live performance lost etc etc), but I've just got home with this one and it's actually quite good.

They're obviously regulars around the Manhattan subway network--they pop up a few times on YouTube, often shamelessly breaking off mid-song (as here) to flog a few CDs...

retail therapy

Hats off today to the people in Flashback music shop in the Essex Road who cheered me up after a depressing visit to the HMV in the Angel Shopping Centre, where music now comes in in a feeble third place behind DVDs and computer games.

Yes I know downloads are taking their toll but come on guys, show some interest. In fact why not take a leaf out of Flashback's book? Granted, it's no megastore, but they've got a good selection of CDs ranging from classical through world, jazz, hip-hop, exotica, pop/rock, as far as "stoner rock", "thrill jockey/kranky" and "doom and sludge" (answers on a postcard?). Then they've got a whole basement full of (whisper it) vinyl. And not just 12-inch techno and hip-hop, real albums from the sixties and seventies.

Yes it's mostly old stuff but I still managed to pick up Stereolab's new album for £7.99 as well as Buika's recent flamenco/fado/jazz CD (not sure about this one yet), also Field Music's "Tones Of Town" (2006) for a bargain £2.99.

Cheered me up anyway...

too much music!

OK, I need to stop buying CDs.

The problem is: I hear a song on the radio, or I go to a gig, and I remember how good that band is/was and get out my copy of a CD of theirs or a scratchy old LP from my record rack and listen to it a few times.

Consequently, I've now got a stack of CDs which I've bought recently, or have turned up in magazines, and which I haven't really listened to properly, viz.

• Paul Weller: 22 Dreams
• Fleet Foxes: Fleet Foxes
• Last Shadow Puppets: The Age of the Understatement
• Bjork: Vespertine
• Rough Guide to Klezmer Revival
• Soul II Soul: The Classic Singles 88-93
• Aimee Mann: Lost In Space
• three compilation CDs from The Word magazine
• three compilations from Songlines magazine

So I hereby resolve to buy no more new music until I've given this lot a good going through. No shopping till September...

retail therapy

Record fairs are an interesting phenomenon I think. They come in various sizes: large (held at places like Olympia and the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham), medium-sized (Camden's Electric Ballroom, the Brighton Centre) and small (church halls and community centres in more suburban areas). I sometimes go along to the one at the St Marks Church Hall in Wimbledon: first Saturday of the month, free entry, and a carrot dangling at the end of a couple of hours trudging joylessly round the shops nearby.

I haven't yet worked out whether I am looking through the same merchandise every time I go or whether there is a slightly different selection on offer from month to month. I never seem to have problems finding something to buy though. Today about 80 per cent of it is--still--in vinyl form, about 15 per cent CDs, the rest DVDs, audio cassettes at 50p a shot and a few books. Most is pretty mainstream stuff although I'm particularly pleased to shell out for a CD by Brazilian singer Virginia Rodrigues which I've been trying to track down for a while.

I spend about an hour looking round. I see two other shoppers. Four dealers (as ever, men in their fifties/early sixties) sit at the table at the end of the room, chatting, supping tea, occasionally sending out for Chinese take-aways and of course listening to music. Some of the tracks go down particularly well, none more so than an Aretha Franklin song at various points during which all four join in, as one: "You ... make ... me ... feel ... like ... a ... natural ... WOMAN".

See you next month lads.

Other links:
- VIP24.com and spinningwax.com give details of upcoming record fairs
- The record collectors' bible: er, the Record Collector

six underground

After a music-free Christmas, I went to ground for the day on Saturday and listened to practically all of the 6Music Top 100 singles of the year. Some good stuff here (although way too much Muse for my liking), and the occasional track which I hadn't heard before, like "Setting Sun" by the Howling Bells (available in video and audio format thanks to the usual suspects). As a result, I went HMV sale-shopping on Sunday and took a flyer on their album. Some good tracks, but generally a bit disappointing. Hopefully it's a slow burner. Also shelled out for Michigan by Sufjan Stevens (on "Asthmatic Kitty" Records!), another 80-odd-minute epic in his state-by-state musical travelogue and pretty much more-of-the-same as (the more recent) Illinoise which I bought this time last year. What with his 4-CD Christmas box-set (favourable reviews all round), I'll be surprised if he can keep this pace up for much longer. Third purchase (a snip at £5) was Songs To Remember by Scritti Politti (their best?), the cassette copy of which I lost a long time ago. Should keep me going for a while...

mercury rev

Frustrated by a lack of decent album purchases in recent weeks, and having read some favourable reviews following its Mercury Music Prize nomination, I decided to give the Guillemots' "Through the Window Pane" a go. I thought they were a bit gimmicky when I saw them live a few months ago, but I like their big tunes and overblown arrangements. I heard Mark Radcliffe comparing Fyfe Dangerfield's voice to Billy Mackenzie's the other week, but for me there's more than a hint of Roddy Frame there, particularly in "Trains to Brazil" the (excellent) current single. (Listen to it here.)

Other CD fave at the moment is the Arctic Monkeys' album, getting its second wind following an impressive performance the other week at the Reading Festival (considerately brought to my living room by BBC3). This has got to be album of the year by some distance...

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.

our favourite shop

Uh-oh. New Year's Day blow-out at HMV Oxford Street!!! Picked up three excellent new(ish) CDs in the sale:

1. Go! Team - Thunder, Lightning, Strike
- This is a great album. Strange really cos I listened to it in a record shop when it came out and didn't think much of it. Glad I had a change of heart anyway. "One of the essential albums of the year" (musicOMH.com), "Cinematic, fantastic, and essential to all who want their music larger than life and rambunctious" (allmusic), "If this album doesn't make you want to dance your socks off, then you're dead already" (er, me).

2. Richard Hawley - Coles Corner
- Classy Sheffield-based crooner, ex-Pulp guitarist and main mover/shaker behind A Girl Called Eddy--see my albums of the year. Brilliant title track.

3. Sufjan Stevens - (Come on feel the) Illinoise
- Clocking in at an epic 75 minutes or so, a bit much to get the hang of with only a couple of listens but sounds good so far. Quite tuneful, some nice harmonies.

Added to the Thea Gilmore CD (Loft music: great cover of "Ever fallen in love with someone" by the Buzzcocks) my brother got me for Christmas and a cheap copy of "Is This It?" by the Strokes to replace my feeble cassette copy, this pile of stuff should keep me busy for a few weeks.

:-)