Winter 1963

Dear Dutch readers. What does eeuw mean?

I have absolutely no clue what my favourite album of my year of birth is. I thought it'd be The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (your choice) but that album just bores me to death. It's not going to be The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady neither. I never got into Mingus (except Joni Mitchell's album), his lush and powerful sound is not my cup of tea. I need some more time to find out what my fave is or if I haven't any. Sorry about that. Too tired to blog. This was just a test post to check if the email notification works.

P.S. Apparently the email notification does not work yet. Sorry about that. I'll try to get this working...

I have been a fan of the melodic indiepop which is crafted in the Northern part of the British island for a long time. Bands like Teenage Fanclub, BMX Bandits, Trash Can Sinatras, AC Acoustics, Belle and Sebastian, Arab Strap, Jesus and Mary Chain (the later stuff) and the Cocteau Twins all have a certain cosiness and warmth about them I cannot resist.

Only yesterday I discovered The Reindeer Section whose latest album is at #13 in This Is Not an Exit's best of 2002. Apparently Gary Lightbody from Snow Patrol formed the band at a Lou Barlow concert in Glasgow. As many local groups were attending the show Lightbody who was in a merry mood asked them if they wanted to join his new band and they all said yes. Altogether there are 27 musicians involved coming from bands like Snow Patrol, Arab Strap, Belle and Sebastian, Idlewild, Teenage Fanclub, the Vaselines, Mogwai, Astrid, Mull Historical Society, V-Twin, Eva, Hercules and Alfie. If there ever was a supergroup this would be it.

The Reindeer Section released their second album Son of Evil Reindeer a couple of months ago. I am just getting totally addicted to the reserved Cartwheels, the sublime Coldwater and the touching You Are My Joy which you can stream with real audio here at EuroRanch. There are also three tracks from the first album Y'all get scared now, ya hear! there. If you like dreamy, tender, intimate and mainly downtempo songs you should check them out.

I really love the unobtrusiveness of this music. The spare string and horn arrangements never impose themselves on the simple gorgeous tunes. Mellow wistful songs which will warm my heart enough to survive the winter.

of their concert on December 07, 2002 at St. Ann’s Warehouse; Brooklyn, NY on the Wilco fan community with live recordings page (via ToT). Loose Fur is the supergroup by Jeff Tweedy, Jim O'Rourke and Wilco's drummer Glenn Kotche.

P.S. The Loose Fur show on the live recordings page has been replaced by a Wilco concert from 1999 (Jan., 15th 2003).

December, 4th, Offenbach, Robert Johnson

The opener Tom Liwa from Duisburg sat with his guitar on a chair with legs crossed and seemed very detached from the public when singing his dreamy intimate songs. It was almost like if he sang them to himself. He played mainly acoustic and some electric guitar. His songs are about everyday life and the lyrics are in simple German. But they somehow speak to me about the mystery of normal unspectacular life. The special thing about Liwa is his voice. It is very soft and mellow and sounds very natural. Though he hardly ever rose his voice it was rather expressive as he sang with different phrasings and accentuations. The sound was quite good for one man and a guitar though the bigger part of the audience preferred to stand behind the scene and talk. In one song he made me think of a fortyish Nick Drake. Often I didn't listen to the words and was distracted in a good way. I started to think about totally different things. The music was inspiring. At the end he introduced Low as the best band of the world which I found really weird as it was so over the top.

Low started with the phantastic song In the Drugs which was probably the best of the set. The audience was totally mute and listened to this in awe. The band created a spiritual atmosphere from the beginning on with their unique sound stretching the notes to eternities. Most of the evening they played songs from the new album Trust which I didn't know before. Mimi's voice impressed me a lot the whole evening. Sometimes it was sounding like early Joni Mitchell without the very high bits where Joni doesn't hit the right notes. Very clear and often modulating, changing. Alan often sang in a kind of falsetto and he even joked about it by making his mike responsible for him not sounding very masculine. The best songs were the ones where both of them sang. Usually he sang a line first and then she repeated it. Two other phantastic songs were Amazing Grace and Sunflower. Before playing a weird Pink Floyd cover (Fearless from Meddle) I had never heard before Alan joked by asking us if we knew Pink Floyd. Some people in the audience including me had to laugh and then he described them as this young, hip band from NYC. They were full of that kind of absurd dry humour all evening long. Alan alluded to the fact that the Robert Johnson usually is a dance club and wondered why the audience didn't dance. Pointing to the enlarged photos hanging on the walls he said that the people on those photos were having fun. And asked why we seemed so sad and said as well that the band is very happy and not sad at all. We didn't dance as their music obviously isn't dance music at all. Later the bassist said something about feeling sorry as they didn't bring any junk if I understood him well. Nobody laughed including me.

They are very professional performers. Extremely relaxed and sure of themselves. I understood at the concert that actually only playing a note every ten seconds or so is extremely difficult considering that if you hit the wrong note it will immediately show.

I found some a cappella songs sung by Mimi and another one sung by Alan slightly annoying. Alan announced the La La La Song as easier for us to sing-a-long than the previous songs (very funny). Of course no-one in the audience sang (I hummed a little) and I think they were a little disappointed. Another song was quite traditional. Their roots must be somewhere there. They sound solemn in a way and the simple lyrics which are often about grace and things are pointing into the direction that Mimi and Alan are Mormons. Alan did most of the set with eyes closed.

They only gave one encore and seemed a little uninspired. They didn't do their amazing slow motion cover of Joy Division's Transmission and I was slightly disappointed in the end. They also did some loud songs, one was for Napalm Death (;-) who played in Frankfurt the same night. Distorted guitar and hard rocking bass. Mimi played the cymbals and drums mostly with the brushes.

After the show I asked Tom Liwa of whom I bought his latest double cd Two Originals... (one cd acoustic songwriter, the other punk) what his favourite album of Low was. He said Things We Lost in the Fire. It was at 20 euros which I found an exaggerated price for a concert sale.

Did you know that there was a site dedicated to Neil Young's still unavailable On the Beach from 1974?

The adequate accompanying 10/10 review of this album is here at the wonderful music site Nude as the News.

Only eight albums in this poll. That's all I have from my year of birth. It should be as easy or difficult for you as for me.

Agnes M does a countdown of the best of 2002 with mp3 links to one to four songs every day in her music blog this is not an exit which I probably discovered via Wisdom Goof. As of today she is at #11 which is Ugly Casanova's Sharpen Your Teeth by Now with the four mp3 links still working. I didn't even know that the Tindersticks (#15) had a new album out with the characteristic title Trouble Every Day. Wilco on #12 seems quite reasonable to me too. I am very curious about the next album doors she will open for us like in an Advent calendar. Someone who names The Smiths, Joy Division and the Pixies as three out of five favourite bands can't have a bad taste ;-)

Kenan Hebart from Analog Roam also did a post on the Best of 2002 with links to other people's lists. His list has Beck on the top spot, Interpol on #2, Wilco on #4, Sonic Youth on #10, Yo La Tengo on #11 and the two Tom Waits albums on #12. Another nice selection.

This Is The Thread Where We Post Every Single End of Year List We Can Find and The Best of the first 2/3 of 2002 (not really true I guess as the last posts are from December) at I Love Music.

Dean Martucci did a long list in his blog Notes from Slipping Acres (December, 5th) including some usual suspects like Beck, Lambchop, Wilco, Interpol and Tom Waits.

As of now my favourites would be:

• Montgolfier Brothers - The World Is Flat
• Lambchop - Is a Woman
• Tom Liwa - Two Originals...
• Hayden - Skyscraper National Park
• Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
• Tom Waits - Alice
• Sonic Youth - Murray Street
• Yo La Tengo - The Sounds of the Sounds of Science

The cover is kind of surreal. A white-haired man and a middle-aged woman wave at each other. Each of them has almost crossed a small bridge made of wooden boards. They are about three meters apart. The two bridges on which they stand span two small creeks merging into one slightly bigger creek flowing slowly into the coniferous forest. A mountain of which the top is cut off by the photo looms behind. Why do the man and the woman raise their arms to say hello if they could talk to each other? A philosophical message concerning the futility of verbal communication seems to lie behind the image.

Pinback are the two multi-instrumentalists Rob Crow from Heavy Vegetable and Zach Smith from Three Mile Pilot. On three tracks Rob Zinser who is also from Three Mile Pilot plays the drums. Their hometown is San Diego but it wouldn't be correct to say that their music is sunny. The mood is closer to Mark Kozelek's Red House Painters without being as desperate and forlorn.

As I am not able to put this music into adequate words I can only use all the stereotypes and clichés I know here. Pinback have a distinct sound dominated by guitar, bass, keyboards, drum machine and the low-key voices of Crow and Smith. Usually one of them starts to sing and the other one joins in later singing his own lyrics. Each song has two sets of lyrics which fuse in beautiful harmonies. The tunes are airy and light but unforgettable. Time does not exist in this microcosmos. Everything flows smoothly and slowly. This music feels mellow and ripe. Like two sages singing about the essence of life. There is also a wistful component which doesn't come over as depressive at all. The unpretetentiousness and unobtrusiveness make this album so enchanting.

The drum machine fits perfectly into the songs especially in the magnificent Hurley. It doesn't matter that it is a machine. These songs are not really about rhythm. They are more about atmosphere created by the harmonies and the melody line which is often played by the bass.

Shallow or not isn't the question here. It is more can you resist beauty? Dan Perry said on an ILM thread that this is how he thought Coldplay sounded. Not the worst description. In any case this is how they should sound if they want to get my attention. How to move the listener without falling into the worst mannerism in male singing which is called falsetto. The only parallel to Coldplay is that the band name Pinback is a juxtaposition of two seemingly unrelated words. That is about the only thing I would reproach them.

A couple of songs: For the opener Tripoli please read the other short reviews below. Chaos Engine is a soft keyboard dominated lullaby with nicely accelerating programmed drums. The following track Shag is a change, a little rougher, more like Pavement. The whispered voices sing lyrics strongly contrasting to the still rather calm nature of the song:

I discovered Pinback via the ILM listening chambers which unfortunately don't exist anymore. The idea was to post an mp3 without naming the artist or song and the others would discuss on it without mentioning names if they knew them. A very good way to find about music you usually never listen to or don't know about. The song in the ILM listening chamber 9 was Tripoli, the album opener. Three views on this song which condensate Pinback's music much better than anything I could ever write about them:

Kim in the ILM listening chamber thread:

Tom Ewing on NYLPM (March, 27th, 2000):

Pitchfork's Andrew Goldman in his review of the US release of the album:

The now defunct westernhomes with a more critical approach concerning the album:

The AMG:

Customer review at Amazon:

If you arrived to the end of this I can offer you a link to mp3s of 16 songs (#15 Victorious D is a broken link) Pinback performed live in San Diego on March, 23rd, 2002. Six of the twelve songs on This Is a Pinback CD are assembled there. Unfortunately three of my favourites (Crutch, Lyon and Byzantine) are missing. Other mp3 links: Versailles (pop-up alert), Loro and Chaos Engine.

And here is the overview of the series 40 years, 40 albums of which part IV was this post.

By the way the poll for 1972 has been closed. The winner was Nick Drake's Pink Moon which has been my favourite of that year for most of my life.

Kimya Dawson and Toby Goodshank plus Jeffrey & Jack Lewis and Dufus will play at the Dreikönigskeller in Frankfurt on Sunday, December, 8th (announcement in German). That small and cosy place conjures up good memories for me. I saw American Analog Set there a couple of months ago. Just before they disbanded.

Has anyone already seen this bunch of weirdos live? Are they worth to check out?

Antifolk to me seems the most stupid genre labeling ever. Lo-Fi would be more meaningful I guess. They have been compared to Beat Happening and the Violent Femmes. That sounds interesting to me.

ILM discussion: Moldy Peaches et al

to some early industrial highlights over at EuroRanch from Vienna, my favourite listening log with real audio streams:

Cabaret Voltaire - 3 Tracks von "The Original Sound Of Sheffield '78/'82. Best Of