The Hoboken trio Yo La Tengo put out May I Sing with Me in 1992. As most of their albums it is an eclectic high-quality work. Not really innovative but having this immediately recognisable band sound which I would call human and down-to-earth for the lack of better words in my limited vocabulary. A kind of indie folk rock with noisy elements which has been pioneered by the Velvet Underground in the late 60s.

This is the first song on it. It starts like an acoustic guitar instrumental. By the way my favourite tracks by them are instrumentals. An unhasty, lovely tune evolves. It feels like the foreplay before the intercourse. Tender and warm. When Georgia's drums kick in, the song accelerates and gets more physical. And when she starts humming the lyrics soon after, the extended plateau of the climax is finally reached. Her singing already bears the sadness of post coitum omne animal triste in it. In the background I hear Ira bumbling in sync. At the end when we are left with the slow drums and the guitar again the melancholy fades away and the song stops rather abruptly. All good things end too quickly.

Giant Sand, the desert rock trio from Tucson, Arizona released Center of the Universe in 1992, an album where Howe Gelb and mates cover the usual wide spectrum of indie rawk, American roots music, spacy ballads, paranoid noise and some bar jazz. Compared to many other albums by them, they are quite focussed and cohesive on this one. Going in zillions of directions but never getting lost.

The opener Seeded sets the atmosphere of the record. It's a guitar freakout track on the noisy side of things. John Convertino's drums kick off the song which is then dominated by a raw electric guitar which is backed up by Paula Brown's bass. After more than half of the song Howe starts delivering his surreal opaque lyrics in his deadpan voice and the Psycho Sisters provide the antithetic humming background choir. The fierce distorted guitar attack is perfectly balanced out by the harmonical singing of the girls. It's a song about yin and yang, about ferocity and sweetness. How can anyone not love the odd genius of Howe Gelb, I will never get it. He is like a Captain Beefheart of our times. Without the Captain's delta blues fixation but with songs with tunes I can appreciate. Maybe I haven't tried enough with Don van Vliet yet though.

1992 was also a peak year for shoegazing, an originally British movement of quite slow hypnotic music characterised by textures mainly based on layers of guitars. The name comes from the fact that the bands and/or the audiences were often looking down at their shoes and dancing slowly on the spot when listening to the music. It usually has a very full sound and marries distortion and pop hooks in a way which I always found very appealing. I would say that the grandparents of shoegazing were the melodic guitar noise band Jesus & Mary Chain and the atmospheric dream pop group Cocteau Twins. Both from Scotland which I think is no coincidence. The peak of shoegazing was probably My Bloody Valentine's Loveless (who were formed in Dublin) from 1991 but in 1992 there were still quite a lot of classic releases from bands like Lush, Ride, the Pale Saints and Catherine Wheel. My favourite tune of this genre has always been Flower to Hide from the last group's debut Ferment which was produced by Tim Friese-Greene of Talk Talk.

This song has got a transcendental quality of a kind to it which I generally love in music. It reaches towards something beyond the ordinary life, it has got the touch of magic which makes listening to it almost like a religious experience. This might sound inadequate and preposterous but it is how I experience this track. Like many shoegazer bands Catherine Wheel haven't got a singer with a dominant voice. Rob Dickinson's vocals are rather thin and subdued but that only adds to the power of the music. In comparison the rich guitar sound becomes even huger as a monument becomes more gigantic on a photo when you put a tiny human next to it. There is this typical swirling movement in the guitars which totally captivates me. Together with the heavenly wistful melody building up it makes this song so addictive and infectious to me. Asking for a replay when it finishes. The best drugs are the aural ones. You don't get a hangover. On the contrary the music resonates on in your mind for a long time after you have listened to it.

There is this clacking sound in the beginning which is repeated many times throughout this song. It makes me think of loose shutters hitting each other in a summer breeze. Slightly spooky but kindling the curiosity as well. And then there is the heavy fuzzy electric guitar coming in for the second time in the last minute of the song. Cutting through the air, cutting through my heart. It hurts and it releases at the same time. Put it full blast on your car hifi. But be careful and watch the road. Or don't. Not a bad choice for a last listen. I am in a weird mood these days. Neither good, nor bad. There are all these memories of little events in my life coming back to me like in flashs. I hope it means something.

Here is the link.

It has been mentioned in the comments, 2002 was a great year for music. I wonder if it has to do with 9/11. As if historical watershed years catalyse the best in the auditory arts. The albums I liked most are all rather reserved and introspective. Antidotes to the political mess we got in. Often otherworldly (Beth Gibbons, Hayden, Low) and/or melancholically melodic (Montgolfier Brothers, Okkervil River, Tom Liwa). Jane Birkin set a counterpoint to the politics of a certain superpower by rearranging the Gainsbourg tunes she cannot get over with an Arabian orchestra (the first song Elisa sounds better than the original). Wilco and Suicide obviously deal with the new disorder of the world. Both albums are musically unoriginal but the mix of ingredients is very inventive and extremely listenable. American Supreme is my favourite dance album of 2002. I know that is a bit inappropriate but my body is stronger than my mind. Rev's cheap beats together with Vega's echoing animal voice are totally my bag.

Lambchop's album is like the antithesis to American Supreme (and my 2001 fave, Radiohead's timely nightmarish chef d'œuvre Amnesiac). Instead of an absolutely justified paranoia in the industrial wasteland we have the calm and warmth of a pastoral countryside landscape. It also sounds minimal but that is a delusion. Is a Woman is a masterpiece of understatement and the subtle use of instruments. One of the few albums which sound better if you listen to it on low volume. The three basic components are the piano, loads of different guitars and Kurt Wagner's raspy sprechgesang. He hardly ever breaks into falsetto and when he does like at the end of The New Cobweb Summer it is not embarrassing at all. Kurt was a friend of the late Richard Brautigan. And somehow his music emanates the same kind of innocence and fragility as Brautigan's lovely surreal books written from the perspective of a down to earth naïveté. With the open eyes of a child which is discovering this strange world without adult prejudices. This kind of puts the focus back on the simple things which matter. And go under in the media noise.

My favourite bit of the lyrics is at the end of the opener The Daily Growl:

By the way the bonus disc with three extra songs is gorgeous as well. A rare thing nowadays. Some people would call this album chill-out but that's totally off the mark. Heart-warming in chilly times, yes.

Here is the overview of the series 40 years, 40 albums of which part XXXII was this post.

One must imagine the weblogger unhappy.

30 Luxembourg-Limpertsberg. Avenue Pasteur. A nice summer day. On the balcony. Ian arrived last and we listened to Joy Division. I also remember preparing the salad with Lene.

32 Luxembourg-Dommeldange. Barbecue on the lawn. I mixed the cocktails. That's all I did, I think. I was on the Blue Lagoon trip. When the night broke we smoked some good stuff. Catherine and Jens did most of the grilling. She was not amused when I didn't want to leave.

37 At our "new" house. With colleagues and friends. I didn't enjoy it enough as I tried to be a good host.

38 I was abstinent for over a month. We had our neighbour and my parents chez nous. My neighbour did not stop talking and didn't want to leave. What a nightmare.

39 Not sure but I think I was on a family festival the night before. Around midnight almost everyone (I have a big family on my mother's side) sang Happy Birthday. Including me. Afterwards I asked for whom we had been singing...

40 Absolutely no clue. I totally suppressed that day from my memory. I never turned 40!

41 In Bergen. It was raining slightly in the morning. A typical Norwegian summer day.

42 Three days left. I don't want to think about it. Did I mention that I do not like birthdays?

Here is a link to the mp3 of the song I mentioned yesterday. Somehow I cannot access my webspace at Arcor anymore, that's why this is just a yousendit link which will expire in a week or so. It's a ten minute guitar ballad with a vibe similar to Neil Young's Cortez the Killer. A road song which also evokes Dylan's mouth harp blues.