LaRM day 131 (Duke Ellington)

Time may move on and fashions may change but for Duke Ellington the music started and ended in the 1940's and no matter how much hard bop and fusion there was by 1963, he was having none of it. In fact it's interesting to hear just how enlivening and inpiring Ellington's purely trad swing jazz still was by the 1960's, and that's partly because his stuff simply works, there's no trying hard to push boundaries or be challenging or interesting, all that's going on here is an unbreakable formula worked through by one its greatest applicators. The self-explanatory title of Will Big Bands Ever Come Back? (1963) is also something of a self-reflexive joke, because the answer is proven by the content. This is indeed big band swing played with such verve, such easy excitement, that the answer may well be "no" but who cares, it's still great stuff. A telling demonstration of Ellington's notoriously keen intelligence can be found in his superb reading of 'Rhapsody in Blue', the modern hidden in amongst the traditional, and his unchallengeable rebuff to those who would innovate for innovation's sake alone. Oddly though, the same year saw the release of Jazz Violin Session, a collaboration with Stephane Grappelli, which although you wouldn't call it groundbreaking innovation, did mark something of an acceptance of the need to adapt on Ellington's part. However, although Grappelli (and two other violinists) are all over the album, it's entirely Ellington's show. It's a supremely casual listen, suggesting that the players all had a great time playing together and there's a simple grace to it all which is unusual in these kind of trad interpretations.

Next up are three Ellington albums that are extremely curious, starting with 1964's Walt Disney's Mary Poppins. For some reason Ellington's record label persuaded him to record an album of interpretations of the songs from Mary Poppins and the album was rush released in 1964. Weirdly it really works and Ellington manipulates and deconstructs the songs in such a way as to render most of them scarcely recognisable, and to bring out the deeper melody behind the showtune surface. It's certainly a peculiar album but it's an inexplicably good one. The real difficulties of staying true to your style when nobody else is interested in it anymore really come to the surface on Ellington '65 and Ellington '66 (released in those years). These are deeply problematic records, on which Ellington (I assume was told rather than chose) records a selection of tunes, both trad and modern, the modern including stuff like 'Blowin' in the Wind' and 'I Want to Hold Your Hand'. And the modern pop and rock songs are absolutely disastrous, and also drag down the more traditional fare. It's a shame because it proved that both Ellington and his style were by this point hopelessly out of time, and it would be some years before we came to recognise the brilliance of his work without suggesting that he should move with the times, man.

On holiday for two weeks - massive dose of ELP on my return. Ulp.

LaRM day 130 (Eleventh Dream Day-Nancy Elizabeth)

Drafting in John McEntire from Tortoise to oversee production of their next album meant that the sound of Eleventh Dream Day changed quite dramatically. Unsurprisingly McEntire made the band strip away their desert rock and Neil Young influences and explore the post-rock element that had been a minor element of their work to date in more detail. The album that they recorded as a result, 1994's Ursa Major is a big departure, but it's a superb album. It moves from very effective post-rock mood pieces to Yo La Tengo-ish feedback drenched rock songs and Rick Rizzo's guitar work is understatedly brilliant, similar in many ways to Ira Kaplan's in that it sounds as if he's struggling to keep the guitar under control. It's a much more thoughtful and self-possessed record than either Lived To Tell or El Moodio, and in many ways it doesn't really sound like the work of the same band, but it's a very fine album indeed. Next up should have been the B-side to the 'Orange Moon' 7" but I can't find it on the internet anywhere.

Moving even further into the post-rock genre is 1997's Eighth. It's a fine record is Eighth, full of intriguing musical constructions that are far more complicated and delicately put together than they initially sound. In fact, by this point the problems with the record are the opposite to the problems with the earlier albums: the proper rock songs were the highlights on the first few albums, but it's the more atmospheric stuff that works best here and make the straighter rock songs sound a bit forced by comparison. Although it's a less wilfully brainy effort than most post-rock outfits release, that in fact works in its favour because although Eleventh Dream Day have always been a smart band, to sound like an intellectual exercise wouldn't fit their approach at all, and there's is a more natural, more organic approach to post-rock and is all the more charming for it. The affinity with Yo La Tengo is all the more obvious on Eighth and in terms of guitar mangling, there are occasons when Eleventh Dream Day almost reach Yo La Tengo's remarkable heights.

Next in line are the psychedelic pop songs of Elf Power. As far as bands from the Elephant 6 Collective go Elf Power were pretty near the top, making some of the most whimsical yet endearing records. The trick was partly to marry a rather cutesy sound and songwriting with some truly disconserting lyrical imagery. There are some lovely tunes on A Dream in Sound (1999) and it's an appropriate title, as the whole record does indeed play like the soundtrack to a dream, alternately soothing and unnerving, never settling into a specific feel. It's lo-fi, fuzzy, but there are some superb pop songs, opener 'Will My Feet Still Carry Me Home' being among the best of them. The direct connection with other Elephant 6 bands, particularly Olivia Tremor Control comes more to the fore on next album, The Winter is Coming (2000). Better produced, yet fuzzier still and more woozily whimsical, The Winter is Coming is another development, adding more obviously dark foundations to the pop music, slowing things right down, and making the uncomfortable sense of something not right happening in the songs more intense. It's a strange combination because although it creates a wilfully odd record, it also means that you're acutely aware of the discomfort while enjoying the poppiness of the whole thing. Next should have been the B-side of 'The Naughty Villain' 7" (2000) but once again, can't find it netwise.

Much more lively is 2002's Creatures which is stuffed full of charming pop songs, most of which race by a brisk pace. There's still something creepy about the lyrics - effectively it's a concept album about unnamed things slithering about in slime and sewers (I guess that's our minds man) and it's all deeply unsettling, but the tunes are great, lively songs that are full of woozy hooks and the tottery performance simply adds to the atmosphere. Andrew Reiger's high, uncertain vocals convey his odd, imagistic ideas perfectly and as far as guitar, bass and drums combos (with occasional flutes and keyboards admittedly) go, this is all pretty inventive stuff. Elf Power have released a whole bunch of albums since Creatures but for some reason I've never picked them up. I guess it's because the record shops I used to love (Selectadisc mainly) stopped selling US indie stuff in favour of electronica and dance in the early 2000's and it got more difficult to find anything by the bands or on the labels I liked.

Elis Regina was one of Brazil's most successful and most notorious singers and she made a succession of variously fantastic albums from the age of 15 until her untimely coke and booze induced death at 36. Early in her career (at 21) the release of her seventh album, Elis (1966) didn't make any particularly great stir, everything she made sold by the bucketload by that point, but it's as good an introduction to her superb interpretive bossa nova as any other. This is the kind of stuff that couldn't really travel so well in the 60's - Elis was no smooth as silk Astrid Gilberto, she was the real deal, dirty and lively, and her samba and bossa nova wasn't tempered by US commercial interests, there are no floating sax lines to be found here, mostly just the piano, guitar and percussion that forms the foundation of all great bossa with occasional stabs of brass. In terms of approach Elis Regina's work sat halfway between the easy style of Gal Costa and the challenging experimentalism of Joyce, Regina wasn't concerned with pushing boundaries but she was interested in delivering the real thing in as earthy a way as possible and the stuff on Elis demonstrates just how brilliant she was at doing just that.

Nancy Elizabeth's Battle and Victory (2007) was a record that was cruelly ignored and what little attention it did garner was on the completely fallacious basis that she was England's answer to Joanna Newsom. Now I love the Newsom but this is something so very different that comparisons are absurd. But you see they both play the harp, so they MUST BE THE SAME, NO?? Good old music journos really are some of thickest tosspots you'll ever come across. Anyway, Battle and Victory is much more akin to a cross between avant-folk and Bat for Lashes. There's a twilit feel to the record, a deep set melancholia, but it's in no way a downer to listen to. The songs are quite simply beautiful pieces which quietly and gently unfold in truly lovely way. It is a demanding record though - if you aren't paying attention it'll go on without you, and it asks you to make the effort, but it's worth it. The harp actually only shows up on a couple of songs, and Nancy Elizabeth's multi-instrumentalists approach takes in pretty much every arcane instrument known to folk, together with sweetly arpeggiated piano and acoustic guitar, and her voice is like rougher edged Beth Orton. It's a great record and one that seems a great shame to have fallen between the cracks. Follow-up Wrought Iron (2009) is a similar proposition but it's a denser, darker record and one that is less engaging generally. There's a sense that Wrought Iron is a deeply serious record and it's certainly a greatly skilled one, but it just can't find the will to really invite the listener in.

LaRM day 129 (Elbow-Eleventh Dream Day)

Elbow's blend of mystical romaticism and delicate musical framing reaches its ultimate conclusion on their most recent album, 2011's Build a Rocket Boys! It takes all of the elements of their previous albums and hones them into an uncompromisingly sentimental and misty set of songs. As mentioned previously, I don't where they can take it from here, because I can't see how this isn't the last point at which to push this approach any further wouldn't tip into parody. Build a Rocket Boys certainly doesn't reach that point though, the album is the last word in poignancy, and its striving for an emotional connection is absolutely palpable throughout. Every song is a really beautiful examination of the conflict between knowing we're all alone and yet needing to exist through each other. In some ways, although it's far from the most immediate, it's their best album. It's certainly the most understated for the most part (although 'Open Arms' is the album's big showy number) and despite the presence of vocal groups, choirs and big string sections, it still feels intimate, close. It's a lovely record, but what next?

From the sublime to the sublimely ridiculous. ELO's fifth album, Face the Music (1975) has Jeff Lynne's late-Beatles rip-off style down pat, and even his vocals are recorded in that slightly echoey way that McCartney favoured, and there are the requisite minor chords, sevenths and key changes that are key to his facsimile approach. Also present is the string section which played such a fundamental part in the ELO sound. Face the Music is a slight anomoly though (the cover is out of style for a start, being rather tastelessly a photo of an electric chair), starting with a silly rock-out instrumental ('Fire On High'), but it's followed by a more stereotypical slowie, 'Waterfall', which is OK but a bit lifeless. The strings on Face the Music are surprisingly subdued throughout the album, but nothing can keep down 'Evil Woman' or 'Strange Magic' which are surely of the greatest (ie silliest) hits of the 1970's. There are a couple of other decent songs on the album ('Night Rider' is pretty rockin) but it's telling that those two singles really stand out.

For some reason I haven't got the superb New World Record, so we go straight on to 1977's absurd, bloated double album, Out of the Blue, which kicks off with the blistering pop-rock of 'Turn to Stone', a truly landmark piece of 70's pop - perfectly written, throwaway genius. Lynne's determination to create something monumental led directly to the mammoth Out of the Blue and while there's too much of it and some of it is really dreadfully stupid ('The Whale' anyone?), you can't deny that he had come up with an unbreakable formula for building pop songs from the ground up into towering slabs of hyper-processed brilliance. Nothing about Out of the Blue sounds quite real, it's almost as if it's been constructed by computers and samplers that didn't exist at the time, a little like real music has been rendered in plastic, and as far as pop music in the 1970's goes it simply doesn't get any better. In fact the opening trio of 'Turn to Stone', 'It's Over' and 'Sweet Talkin' Woman' is probably the greatest run of trash pop the seventies produced. Unfortunately Lynne had also worked out before anyone else the CD age virtue of front loading your album with the good stuff and assuming nobody is really listening by the time it ends, so there are three more sides to get through, a lot of which is forgettable or a bit second-rate, especially on the last side. The strings play a substantial role on Out of the Blue and either bolster or drown songs in specific cases. It's a strange and unwieldy album but the good songs are some of Lynne's best. Incidentally my brother had an amazing bubblegum pink vinyl copy of the 'Sweet Talkin' Woman' 7". It was incredible, I hope he's still got it.

In 1979, pretty much marking the end of ELO's general visibility, they released a Greatest Hits album, which covered Lynne's most successful songwriting period and contained tunes from all the 1974-1979 albums. Half of them are taken from Face the Music and Out of the Blue, but of those that aren't we've got such barnstormers as 'Livin' Thing', 'Can't Get It Out of My Head' and 'Telephone Line', all superb pop singles each of which demonstrates Lynne's phenomenal way with a hook and an absurdly melodic chorus. The only other thing we've got is a cheapo budget sampler, a "Definitive Collection" from 1999 which has all of the big hits already covered together with some later tunes, almost none of which are particularly worthy of attention (although 'The Diary of Horace Wimp' is a bit like a satire on 'A Day in the Life' which is pretty entertaining).

After their success with the prog classic 'I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night' the Electric Prunes went back to the studio with the mighty David Axelrod behind the mixing desk. In many ways this was a disastrous idea for the band because Axelrod had already got in mind what kind of record he wanted to make and whether it accorded with the Prunes didn't matter one jot. As the recording went on Axelrod basically removed all the members of the band from the studio and made his own record with a bunch of session musicians, so to call it an Electric Prunes album was already pretty disingenuous, but worse yet, the discord this created in the group led to them splitting up. In any event the record that "they" made, Mass in F Minor (1968) is really unsurprisingly another Axelrod album in all but name, mixing psych freak-out quitar workouts with classical chamber instrumentation. It's overblown, silly, and pretentious, but it's loads of fun, it's funky on occasion, it's dirty and scuzzy on others and although it's entirely instrumental, it does differ slightly from Axelrod's other work in that it does have a really rough rock edge to it. Similarly absurd is the follow-up, 1969's Release of An Oath, which is really more of the same (there are no members of the Electric Prunes playing on this Electric Prunes album...), but this time out there are some seriously tight grooves amongst the freak-out stuff and it's much closer in tone to Axelrod's Songs of Innocence. Having been primed to the idea of an Electric Prunes record with no vocals by Mass in F Minor, Release of An Oath really is pretty good. It does retain the entirely spurious religiosity (Axelrod claimed that these are song cycles based on ancient liturgical texts. I think that's a loads of balls and even if it isn't there's not much religious history in fuzz bass and wah-wah pedals) and insanely 60's mentality, but it's not bad by any means and it's a superb time capsule. The issue I've got has a bunch of alternate takes of the tunes on Release of An Oath, but they don't add greatly to the original album.

Next up are a couple of albums by Eleventh Dream Day. They were an odd band, moving between Neil Young by way of Bongwater indie rock albums and post-rock atmospherics. Third album Lived to Tell (1991) was the first on which everything came together and the countrified rock that constitutes the most part of the album is a great blend of Young's pushy sand-blasted rock and X's country rockabilly. There are some really good tunes on Lived to Tell and the vocal harmonies between Rick Rizzo and Janet Bean are where the X comparisons make sense the most, and demonstrate just what a great band Eleventh Dream Day were at that point. Better yet is the more straightforward rock of 1993's El Moodio. Rizzo's fuzzy, dynamic guitar work drives everything forward and there are few signs of bassist Doug McCombs' sideline in Tortoise, he's ably helping the heads-down rock along here. The songs on El Moodio are full of simple hooks and when they turn the amps and the pace down a bit and let the songs breathe, they really reveal themselves as not only a great band but excellent songwriters. The Young influence is still writ large throughout, but as we've discussed before, so what?

LaRM day 128 (Mark Eitzel-Elbow)

Eitzel's next unsteady album was 2001's The Invisible Man. There's the sense of diminishing returns to The Invisible Man unfortunately and it's becoming increasingly clear by this point that Eitzel really needs interesting people to bounce ideas off to create records that really work. There are the usual quota of gorgeously melancholic tunes on the album, but they just aren't up to his previous standard and you can't help but feel that he's floundering a bit. 'Christian Science Readin Room' and 'Seeing Eye Dog' are decent songs and if he hadn't made such fabulous albums in the past The Invisible Man taken as a whole would seem like a good album, but Eitzel I suspect feels as poisoned by his previous artistic success as the listener feels let down listening to his records in chronological order. There are too many nondescript songs here and although 'Can You See?' is lovely it's cast adrift amongst lesser material.

It's clear that Eitzel himself could feel things weren't working as well as they should be and tried a few new approaches, including recording an album of his old songs with a traditional Greek band. It's an odd idea and it doesn't really work, but another idea was to add some electronic touches to his work and these are given prominence on 2005's Candy Ass. These electronic experiments also don't bring much to his songs sadly, and when they're the focus of the work (as on the pointless sound experiment 'Cotton Candy Tenth Power') they fall pretty flat. It's when he's back to the usual quiet acoustic form that Candy Ass reveals itself properly, and the good tunes here are some of the most understatedly great that he's written for a while ('Sleeping Beauty' is heartbreaking). But it's all too little really and when there's the dismal Looper-ish 'A Loving Tribute to My City' to get through you can't help but wonder where Eitzel can go from here if he's determined to continue making solo records, especially when it came in the wake of the triumphant reunited American Music Club album, Love Songs for Patriots.

Do I rate the first Elastica album (1995)? It's so hard to know. I think I still really enjoy it but I'm not totally certain. I do know that I don't have a problem with its shameless plundering of the UK post-punk catalogue, indeed, if you're going plundering why not plunder from a rich source. They also use all that material to fashion some spunky pop songs rather than the arty posturing of the bands they're ripping off. But maybe that's what I'm uncomfortable about, the lack of seriousness. I know it doesn't matter, but it all seems maybe too throwaway. I guess if I put that to one side though it's a decent album that races along with a lot of attitude and carelessness which still sounds pretty cool.

Now that they're sodding EVERYWHERE it seems to have become de rigueur to slag off Elbow and say that they're, yawn, borrrinnngg. I'm not having that though. It smacks too much of the classic knock down, post build-up, bullshit that we all love to engage in, and therefore is pretty meaningless. Unlike Elbow's records which are far from meaningless. Athlete they are not, despite what some people might want to claim these days. Debut album Asleep in the Back (2001) is a startlingly subtle piece of creative thinking, creating a dense, disorienting atmosphere which is thick with association and emotional stimuli. It's a clever but instinctive record which insinuates and persuades through the most delicate of musical touches. Guy Garvey's voice is typically described as "yearning" or whatever, but the simple truth seems to be that it merely reflects his own personality, his own nostalgic and sentimental outlook and his musical interpretations thereof. Musically speaking though the gentle, fluid nature of the album is astonishing and so wholly realised that it can be quite breathtaking. There are only two songs that don't quite work ('Bitten By the Tailfly' leaves me especially cold), but they serve the purpose of varying the mood of the album just enough to ensure that it sustains its utterly compelling atmosphere. It's a really remarkable album, and considering that it was finally released (after years and years of being shelved) into a music scene for which this kind of languid grace had no place, it's even more to be admired for its strength of purpose, quite apart from its extraordinary sound. The 'Newborn' CD single (2001) has a decent track in 'Lucky with Disease' but you can hear why it didn't make the cut for the album.

Second album Cast of Thousands (2004) takes a more song-based approach but still manages to maintain a clear sense of movement and smooth flow through its running time. The more woozy elements of Asleep in the Back are stripped away to leave a more skeletal musical framework but this works for most of the album to its advantage, leaving Garvey's vocals and lyrics more room to move. There are passages throughout Cast of Thousands that seem too much like ambience ('I've Got Your Number', 'Snooks (Progress Report')), but when the songs are alive, they absolutely soar - opener 'Ribcage' is one of the many Elbow songs that swells and billows and eventually overflows with keening melody and unashamed romanticism. There are subtler beauties too though and 'Not a Job', 'Buttons and Zips' and one of their finest songs, 'Switching Off', are beautifully close songs that make the most of their assumed emotional interaction with the listener. It's this ability to speak directly to the emotions that makes Elbow such an interesting band to me - so many people strive so hard and fail so miserably (Coldplay, Keane, you know, all that shite) and for Elbow it does seem all too easy to get it right.

No messing about for once, the band went straight back to the studio to record the "angry" follow-up, Leaders of the Free World (2005). This is an angry album only in an intellectual sense, because although it's inspired by a serious personal and political agenda, it is, of course, for the most part another delicate and beautifully constructed set of gentle musical dramas. It opens with one of the most rawly engaging songs in 'Station Approach' and Garvey's thematic agenda is set out pretty clearly, mixing the emotional and deeply personal with a broader view across collective experience and behaviour. It's grand, presumptuous and in some ways pretentious, but there's something so hopelessly, perfectly open about Garvey's romantic turn of mind that it all works wonderfully. The amps do get turned up a bit here and there (on the title track and superb off-kilter rock song 'Mexican Standoff') and there are some unusually spiky songs ('Picky Bugger' has a nasty little staccato string section). As an album it's moving even more towards being a set of songs rather than a whole piece in its own right, but that's where the band have ended up anyway and it's not a problem particularly (in fact, it's saved them from the accusations of a prog mentality that were burgeoning earlier in their career), and it means that the songs have to create their own momentum. Many people have a problem with Leaders of the Free World but I can't hear it myself, I think it's a fantastic album.

Then the next thing you know Elbow are HUGE. And it's all thanks to the song 'One Day Like This' from the next album, The Seldom Seen Kid (2008). 'One Day Like This' has kind of been eviscerated by its own ubiquity which is a great, great shame because it's another of those gigantic swelling Elbow songs that grows in size in relation to its emotional resonance. I guess for once everybody fell for something that does mean something to everybody rather than something that means nothing to anybody (I'm looking at you again Coldplay). Anyway, The Seldom Seen Kid is, as my friend Matt put it, "another good Elbow album". And that's fair comment, because it's not better than any that preceded it, it's just another record of their almost untouchably high quality, awash with the grace and beauty that's just become their stock in trade. Perhaps it's a bit bigger, a bit cleaner, a bit more ambitious, but not particularly, it's just more wonderfully moving and delicately astute songs which create a deep resonance without having to explain their terms. I do wonder how far they can go now, having made it big because I can't help but feel that the well is only full when you can still reach it, and although the next album is another fine piece of work, can it really carry on? Anyway, The Seldom Seen Kid is one of those incredibly rare things, a hugely successful album that is not only not steaming crap but is in fact exceptionally good in almost every way.

LaRM day 127 (Eggs-Mark Eitzel)

The second Eggs album, Exploder (1996), or to give it it's full title, Eggs Teenbeat 96 Exploder, is a much more diverse set of tunes than Bruiser, and although some of the full songs are better than those on the previous album on the whole the album overreaches and fails to meet its ambitions. It was clearly intended to be a dramatic and dynamic demonstration of just how much can be achieved with minimal means but in the end Exploder sounds too much like a lo-fi mess. Some songs are really great ('Why Am I So Tired All the Time' is fantastic) but the scrappy sound collages and noise experiments that litter the album aren't nearly as amusing or interesting as intended and there's not really any reason for the album to be a double other than to suggest ambition. It's a great fun album but the nostalgic feel of Bruiser is entirely absent and instead the effort to create a indie-schmindie epic turns out to have been an inherently flawed concept.

Eggstone, Sweden's "godfathers of Swedish pop", made a number of great, fizzing guitar-pop albums during the 1990's, and the compilation Ca Chauffe en Suede (1999) has songs from each of the three albums and a couple of singles, released between 1992 - 1997. These really are great songs, silly, lighter than air, but gloriously cheerful, alive with that pretend idea of riviera life in the 60's. These are records that fit precisely between episodes of the Persuaders and the records of the Concretes, it's great stuff, inconsequential in the way that the very best pop music is, but still beautifully put together and really smart. It's no surprise that this compilation was released by Bertrand Burgalat's Tricatel label in France, or that the liner notes are by St. Etienne's Bob Stanley, and in many ways Eggstone sit perfectly in Burgalat and St. Etienne's company. Forget the terrible record cover, and listen to the tunes and you're immediately in a world of delicate kitsch of the very best kind.

The term "industrial" may have become a meaningless word applied to rubbish pop records by Nine Inch Nails and Ministry, but once upon a time its meaning was quite specific and pioneering early industrial record, Kollaps (1982) by Einsturzende Neubaten makes clear why. Composed of noise experiments constructed out of mainly percussion played on electric drills and random scraps of metal over which Blixa Bargeld yelps and screams and whimpers, Kollaps is a brutally uncompromising record which has at its heart a genuine interest in the result of conflating brutal, complex and random noise with a strict and inflexible rhythm. In the end, the whole record is probably best summed up by the "mood" list on AllMusic: "Aggressive, Bleak, Cerebral, Detached, Fiery, Intense, Manic, Visceral, Confrontational, Eerie, Harsh, Malevolent, Menacing, Ominous, Volatile". Well, there you have it. No fun, but pretty clever.

What on earth could be less appealing than teenage trustafarian Christians playing "melodic rock"? Well, the answer should of course be nothing, and yet there's something that really strikes me about Eisley's debut album, Room Noises (2005). I think it's because there's something weirdly off-kilter about the songs that make them always do something that's not quite what you'd expect. It's an odd combination of a glossy, major label feel with a genuinely indie mentality rather than a pretend one. Some of the songs on Room Noises are a little corny, but for the most part not, and there are some great songs with funny little touches and although on the surface it might seem to be a record that wouldn't be out of place playing in an All Bar One, closer examination reveals a much more quirky, odd little sensibility throughout.

Our Mark Eitzel section should have started with the two songs from the "Take Courage" 7" (1990), but neither of them are on the internetosphere so we have to go straight on to the live album, Songs of Love (1991). Eitzel's grip on both life and the American Music Club seems have been slipping at the time, AMC having recorded their best album to date and been rewarded for it by being dumped by their label, and Songs of Love is a remarkable document of a great songwriter coming to the end of the line. It's a fabulous, straight from the mixing desk, piece of work and although I've seen Eitzel play solo and with AMC a number of times, I've never heard him this raw. There's little of the low-life tourist about Eitzel, I'm happy to believe that he really has lived through some pretty rough times and seen some pretty bleak things, and the abject desperation that underlies most of his work is brought starkly to the fore when it's just Eitzel and an acoustic guitar. Most of the material on Songs of Love is taken from Everclear, the album he had just recorded but there are unexpected choices from the earlier albums which are revealing, showing that if anything Eitzel's touch has lightened as he's got older, or maybe it's just that he's grown more astute at clothing true misery in more colourful outfits.

Eitzel didn't release another solo album until he had dissolved AMC for the first time. 60 Watt Silver Lining (1996) is therefore in some ways his first "official" solo album, and it's a very different type of record to Songs of Love. The whole album is underscored by a slightly jazzy piano and although Eitzel's trademark gloom is present and correct, there's a lightness of touch to the record which is surprising. The opener is a gentle cover of Carole King's 'No Easy Way Down', which is unexpected to begin with, but it's followed by a breezy, almost joyful 'Sacred Heart' and it's clear either something has happened in Eitzel's life or else he's just experimenting with cheering up musically. Either way, it doesn't feel off, if anything time has been kind to 60 Watt Silver Lining, and it sounds better than ever, now that the surprise has worn off. There are some lovely songs here and 'Mission Rock Resort' and 'Cleopatra Jones' positively bounce along. There are, of course, plenty of miseries along the way ('Wild Sea' and 'When My Plane Finally Goes Down' are pretty grim), but even they have a life to them to is new for Eitzel, and dismal closer 'Everything is Beautiful' is really wonderful.

Eitzel's next move was a collaboration with REM's Peter Buck. Unfortunately West (1997) does little more than reveal weaknesses in both Eitzel and Buck's songwriting at that point and bearing in mind that most of these tunes were already written and intended to appear on the next REM album it's evident that the rot that had set into REM with Out of Time was destined to continue. There's an insidious lifelessness to these songs and Eitzel's vocal melodies struggle to find a hold or true melodicism and to me the album staggers forward with rather a listless air. It's a shame because there are the bones of some lovely songs on West but they all sound as if they could have done with a lot more work before being recorded. There are some jolly tunes and some gloomy tunes, but it all sounds like treading water, even like not really bothering to try to hard and it leaves an unsatisfactory feeling when it's all over. After West is the unwieldingly Elvis-quotingly titled Caught In a Trap and I Can't Get Out Because I Love You Too Much Baby (1998), which I only have on vinyl and from which there are only a handful of songs on the internet. It's another stripped down album, mostly Eitzel and guitar only, but with occasional help from the likes of Yo La Tengo's James McNew. The songs on Caught in a Trap are pretty dour compared to West but it's a step forward again, bringing Eitzel back to what he really does best. However, I won't say much more about it because I haven't been able to listen to it properly for the purposes of this exercise...

More Eitzel tomorrow.

LaRM day 126 (Ecstasy of Saint Theresa - Eggs)

The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa were a kind of post-ambient, post-dub, post-shoegaze Czech outfit who made a couple of absolutely lovely records, none better than 1994's Free-D. What on the face of it seems like typical ambient electronica reveals itself to be something much, much more interesting. For the most part live instrumentation is used throughout Free-D as its foundation, cello, violin, chamber instruments used to incredibly subtle effect, and creating a truly beautiful, hazy, languid atmosphere over which the keyboard washes are layered. Every piece is around the 9 minute mark and each slowly unfolds around shifting motifs, and the whole thing is as delicate as lace and as wonderfully fuzzy as an early spring day. It's really very lovely stuff. I never heard anything after Free-D and I don't know but I suspect they went more electronic and less interesting - in any event I can't imagine they could have topped Free-D's gently insistent beauty.

If there's one band I just could never get it's the Eels. Listening to the Meet the Eels (2008) best-of compilation now, I'm still none the wiser. Covering the hits and the misses from 1996-2006, Meet the Eels should surely be the ultimate primer, and yet all I can hear is the half-baked songs of someone who isn't nearly as smart or acid as he thinks he is (the lyrics are often absolutely terrible). There are occasional clever tricks with melody but even they are so clean somehow, so unreal somehow that I just don't buy it. I had a similar feeling with E's autobiography - there has to be something wrong with the telling of a story that you know is true but is told in such a way that you just don't believe any of it. It's the same way with his songs. I know that the songs from Electro-Shock Blues are awful stories of a truly miserable time in his life, but I don't believe any of it, it's all too neatly told. Anyway, all of this would be carping if the songs were any good but they suffer from exactly the same problem, they're too professional somehow while simultaneously being simply not good enough. I musy be wrong, everybody seems to love the band, but I'm left cold every time.

Although Efterklang's Magic Chairs (2010) has been to some degree impaired by opener 'Modern Drift' being used in an advert (being used in an advert is of course the kiss of death for pretty much any song, not because of proving a band to be mercenary shysters, but more importantly because advertising is by definition shit and any song used in advertising is smeared therefore in shit, making in naturally repellant) the album is still a fairly bracing piece of angular and jagged, post-Sufjan Stevens art-rock. The songs are much more clearly defined on Magic Chairs than on their previous records and there's the worrying trace of serious intent in amongst the marching violins and rolling piano lines. But if you can take what seems to be a rather po-faced approach to delivery and construction it's on occasion a genuinely lovely record with some really great musical phrases.

Long albums and a short day means the last for today is the first album by Eggs which is entitled Bruiser (1994). Eggs were one of those ramshackle Teenbeat bands who made really good albums but in the super-lo-fi, under the radar kind of way that Teenbeat and K and Kill Rock Stars specialised in. Bruiser is an eclectic collection of slightly gloomy indie-rock songs and off-kilter instrumentals, but everything is done in a classic guitar, bass, drums set-up. Despite the essential conventionality Eggs did something slightly different though, and the buried, drawled vocals help to underscore the fundamental notion of discomfort and unease in the record, which in many ways is one of the most romantic in the lo-fi canon. There's a whimsical feel to Bruiser which even despite its surface melancholy helps to keep it moving and in the end, although it's artfully graceless, it's genuinely endearing.

LaRM day 125 (Echo & the Bunnymen - Echobelly)

1983's Porcupine is a bit more grimy, a bit bleaker and doesn't really expand on the palette that Echo & the Bunnymen were using, however, there is a sneakier sense of melody involved in a lot of the songs on Porcupine and there are some surprisingly big choruses ('Heads Will Roll' and 'Back of Love', despite still being painted in dark shades, are pretty close to conventional pop songs). It's another fine album but while there are some great songs there is also the occasional sense of the band treading water ('My White Devil' and the title track for instance). There are some interesting diversions though and the kind of middle eastern melody line that appears in the middle eight of 'Heads Will Roll' is really unusual, and also hints to how much further the band would look on the follow-up. McCulloch continues to up the ante in terms of both his cryptic lyrics and almost hsitrionic delivery, but it's all essential to the atmosphere of (melo)drama that the songs are designed to create.

It all comes together for 1984's Ocean Rain, in which the psychedelic leanings, the bleak soundcaping, the reverb and the echoing, the portentous, pretentious lyrics, the oppressive atmosphere, are all played to their utmost and then drenched in some really inventive string arrangements. Ocean Rain is a fantastically good album, one of the highlights of the 1980's. There are nods to all kinds of stuff (the Doors get rather cheeky references throughout 'Thorn of Crowns') and yet it's an album that is not rooted in the past. I suppose it's one of those albums that demonstrate just how much more imagination was involved in being imaginative in the 80's. For all the bluster and nonsense of prog and the artless stupidity of punk, it was really in the 1980's that bands started to forge something truly new out of old materials, and it's all still enormously exciting to listen to all this time later. Ocean Rain is a unique record in that it touches perfection at exactly the same time as it reaches its peaks of overblown silliness. 'Thorn of Crowns' really is a perfect example: despite McCulloch yelling "c-c-c-cucumber, c-c-c-c-cabbage" you're still swept along by the graceful currents of the song, it's fabulous, and in many ways it really is what the Doors were probably trying to do. Will Sergeant's guitar work is at its most scratchily inventive throughout Ocean Rain and in fact every song is a masterclass in understated performance and low-key creative thinking, while seeming to be ostentatiously showy. 'Silver', 'Crystal Days', 'The Killing Moon', 'Seven Seas' and the majestic title track, it's all really wonderful, wonderful stuff.

A hiatus meant that the next album wasn't released until 1987. The eponymous album is an interesting development, it is much cleaner, less darkly atmospheric, much more concentrated on melody and hooks and all of the string arrangements have gone again. It's effectively simply a straightforward indie rock album of its time. The songs are fine, the sound is fine, the arrangements are fine, but it nonetheless feels like a disappointingly airy and slight album compared to those that had preceded it. In many ways it's the bands most immediately enjoyable and likeable album, there are some lovely sort of poppy indie rock songs on it ('Blue Blue Ocean' is relatively trite, but it's a lovely tune) and there's no denying that it's a really good indie rock album, but there's just that mystery mising, that sense of something hidden and it really doesn't feel like it has the same weight at all. Finally we have the Crystal Days boxset (2008) which has album tracks and rarities from 1979 - 1999. My copy is actually missing the first of the four discs which is annoying because it contains probably the most interesting stuff. Anyway, it's got a bunch of diverting bits and pieces, the most interesting being the B-side 'Way Out and Up We Go' and most of a live show from 1985, composed largely of revealing cover versions of songs by the Rolling Stones, Velvet Underground, the Doors, Television and Dylan.

From a great example of just how special British indie rock can be to a demonstration of how utterly pedestrian it can be. Echobelly's first album, Everyone's Got One (1994) came out at just that period when things started going wrong again in culture, when all the advances that the 80's made, specifically in opposition to the cultural pressures from a political system of antipathy, started unravelling. In other words it was the end of thoughtful, progressive cultural thinking and the start of the Loaded era. For women, the long fought for essential acceptance as part of the indie aesthetic (ie gender being an utter irrelevance) was pretty much within reach when this kind of crap happened, and the half-witted coverage by an invertedly sexist music press of people like Louise Wener and Sonya Aurora-Madden made it possible for the discussion to be reduced to fatuous comments along the "I'm not a feminist but" line, and women were once again brutally and efficiently reduced to the status of either lust object or big mouth rather than musicians and writers. To suggest that it was the women talking the nonsense's fault is to misrepresent entirely the situation, it was the half-wits running the NME and Melody Maker (and by extension the publishers of any "men's interest" magazines - in fact the idea that WHSmith actually separates music and film mags as "men's interest" speaks volumes about just how far back we've all fallen) at the time, but nobody helped out, and the dawn of the disdainfully overtly women-hating post-Oasis Britain was an inevitability. This is all to no purpose in talking about Echobelly, but that's partly because there's almost nothing to say about an album which lasts in the memory exactly as long as it's actually playing. Slightly jangly indie rock at its least inspiring, part of the fault is the dead production that so many of these bands were prey to, but it's also the half-hearted songs, the anodyne performances, coupled with the irritating facetiousness of the overall delivery. It's hardly a record because it's scarcely there.

LaRM day 124 (Steve Earle-Echo & the Bunnymen)

After the bluegrass album, The Mountain, with Del McCoury, Steve Earle returned in 2000 with Transcendental Blues. It's a great album, as eclectic as El Corazon but with a more determined character, a clearer sense of purpose. It starts with a couple of great songs (the title track and 'Everyone's In Love With You'), each of which utilises a muddy guitar sound that almost acts like a drone, and it's a surprising and refreshing approach to writing roots rock that shows that Earle is still quietly intent on proving that there's still loads of life in the genre yet. The album settles into more well worn grooves thereafter, but there's still lots of stuff going on and while songs like 'When I Fall' are reassuringly familiar there's still loads of rock songs, the low-key desolation of 'Lonelier Than This', the traditionalist bluegrass of 'Until the Day I Die' and the almost ridiculous Celtic reeling of 'Steve's Last Ramble' and 'Galway Girl' (further consolidating Earle's desire to connect country and American roots music with European folk (and which the charming Jerry Douglas has continued to do enormously successfully with his Transatlantic Sessions project - on which Earle's latest wife, Allison Moorer, has appeared incidentally)). Lyrically Earle is on top form, with the usual mix of narrative story songs and self-examination, but while they are all framed in what appear to be the cliches of the roots genre they are in fact deeply thought and deeply felt reflections of an angrily intelligent songwriter. The one glaring mis-step is the folk fairy tale 'The Boy Who Never Cried' which, while obviously referring to Earle's own troubles, doesn't work as a song at all I don't think. There are some charming but essentially throwaway numbers like 'I Don't Want to Lose You Yet' but they fit into the whole scheme of the album nicely and in many ways, despite it's rambling and understated genre challenging, is one of Earle's best.

Over the next couple of years the low-key but ever present leftist feeling in Earle's work started coming to the fore as he became increasingly vocal in public about his opposition particularly to the US military campaign in Iraq, and George W. Bush's policies in general. As a result his next album, Jerusalem (2002) was an incendiary album in the US in its unequivocal political position, and one song in particular proved too much for many to stand. 'John Walker's Blues' is about as sophisticated a political rock song as an overt one can ever be and despite still being essentially simplistic it's pretty powerful, not least because taking the viewpoint of the jihadist US citizen allows for a more honest examination of how and why someone might take a standpoint that is different to the majority of a country's citizens. Besides which it's not a bad song. Indeed the album on the whole is a decent rock album (there's no stylistic examination going on here - it's the rule of rock: if you're politically angry, you ROCK OUT), but it's possibly a little hidebound by it's determined stance. I can't help but feel that his points may have been better made if he had used the eclectic stylistic approach that he had perfected to frame them. Nonetheless, there's a lot of fire and fury on Jerusalem and a lot of blame apportioned to a lot of deserving targets. In many ways it's a real relief to have someone as articulate and impassioned as Earle making points for the left because as a rule it seems like it's mostly left to the types of Jon Stewart saying "this is my impression of George Bush - duhhh" to represent the left and that's not good enough, so Earle is something of a beacon. Jerusalem is in no way Earle's best work, but as far as angrily political albums go it's a lot better than Springsteen or Neil Young's contemporary efforts and in my opinion it played an important role.

Next up is Earle's second official live album, twelve years after the catastrophic meltdown of Shut Up and Die Like An Aviator. Just An American Boy (2003) is a very different kind of record, assured, confident, searching and assertive. Where the previous album was a document of a crippled performer coming to the end of the road, this is a whole new person whose commitment to songwriting and political engagement has completely enlivened, restored him. As a live album goes, and as we've seen that's rarely very far, it's a really good example. The songs are given slightly different arrangements to their studio versions, not markedly, but just enough to bring out new angles, and Earle's voice and overall performance is confident and direct. It's all good stuff, the song choices are fine and there's no arguing with his engaging personality which never seems overbearing even when he's giving it large about the state of the US.

Interestingly, Earle's next album, The Revolution Starts Now (2004) is a general thematic continuation of Jerusalem being essentially another political broadside, but there's a broader canvas being used here, and the amps are turned down. On The Revolution Starts Now Earle uses character driven narrative songs in the main, whereas Jerusalem was too incensed for stories, and the result is more thoughtful and wide-ranging examination of the issues around military campaign in Iraq. There are some fantastic songs here ('The Gringo's Tale' is a brilliant tune with some viciously depressing lyrics) but the real highlights unfortunately do bring into the light the weaker tunes (let's pretend the cod-reggae and unfortunate mixed-message "humour" of 'Condi, Condi' never happened for instance). It's a difficult album precisely because it has such highs and such lows, and the stuff that's good is really superb, but how to deal with an album that has 'Condi, Condi' on it....

For some reason I haven't picked up Earle's last three albums so it's on to the next on the list, East River Pipe. East River Pipe are one of those bands that for a short time in the early 90's it was the law to like (a bit like Neutral Milk Hotel a bit later). I never got it myself and listening to the debut 10" mini-LP, Goodbye California (1992), I'm not really any the wiser as to what was getting people hot under the collar. It's gentle, cynical echoey indie rock of a jangly lo-fi stripe and although it does have a melancholy tone there isn't enough to really go mad about. If anything it's another one of those records that sounds too dramatically indebted to the smart-arse British acts of the C86 type, which is fine but their records were better, you might as well listen to them. There are two distinct problems with Goodbye California, one is FM Cornog's flat and unappealing voice has so little character that you kind of hardly notice he;s even there (at least Bill Callahan's voice is actively irritating), and the other is that the songs are so limply structured, so half-baked that you can't really get involved in them. In terms of atmosphere and tone it's all perfectly pleasant but as soon as you start listening closely the whole thing reveals itself to be hopelessly shallow.

Right, deep breath, because he comes some really appalling but hilarious nonsense. Of all the acts on Digital Harcore perhaps the least threatening were EC8OR. If ever a band exposed DHR schtick for dreadfully hollow posturing it was ECC8OR. Early 7" 'Cocaine Ducks' (1996) sets out the paltry stall - terrible drum machine clattering and limp metal guitar samples (just like their mentors Atari Teenage Riot but without the genuine sense of commitment) and shrieking and shouting about nothing much. 'Cocaine Ducks' itself isn't too egregious, it's just badly produced noise that doesn't say or do much. B-sides 'We Are Pissed' and 'Raving Hypsospadie' are much, much worse. 'We Are Pissed' is 60 seconds of Patrick Catani and Gina D'Orio shouting about how pissed they are (I assume they meant pissed off) while 'Raving Hypsospadie' is 5 minutes of the worst breakcore rubbish you've ever heard and that makes the more dismal end of ATR's output sound like genius. The second proper album (not including the compilation on the Beastie Boys Grand Royal label - explain that if you can) 'World Beaters' (1998) is just a pale imitation of ATR's metal sampling, scratching and breakbeat noise with D'Orio playing the Hanin Elias role of screaming a lot. It's really pretty weak, but there occasional signs that they had a few ideas of their own when it calms down a bit ('The Shit You Dig' is pretty good). It's mostly silly nonsense though, as is 2000's 7" 'Gimme Nyquil (All Night Long)'. Honestly. Anyway, there's no way I'm getting rid of this stuff, like everything good, bad, or EC8OR on Digital Hardcore, it's pure gold. (btw there's no cover for Gimme Nyquil and two tunes is easily enough...)

Coo, we've got to the Echo and the Bunnymen section quickly than I'd expected, I had anticipated being able to spend all of tomorrow with Ian McCulloch and the rest but here we are already. We won't be mucking about with any of the 90's output, this is strictly the top stuff here, starting with 1980's debut, Crocodiles. Jettisoning any sense of musical grandstanding in performance the Bunnyment favoured letting things unfold in a much more insidious way and the light and shade involved in all of the music on their albums is really interesting. It avoids being goth despite being decidedly gloomy, it's miles away from pop music despite having fairly standard structure, it's not exactly typical indie fare. I suppose the Joy Division would have been a starting point but even that would be a misleading reference really. It's pretty clever all told and even though McCulloch takes the grandstanding role as vocalist and lyricist, it's strangely appropriate the music should be so unshowy to allow a subtle, seemingly rickety platform on which he can build his strident performances. Crocodiles has some great songs, the most obvious being I suppose 'Pictures on My Wall', 'Pride' and 'Villiers Terrace', but it's all pretty good, and bearing in mind that this was stuff designed to sit just outside what was going on at the time, it's testament to their balls and their brilliance that it still sounds so great now.

Heaven Up Here (1981) continues the development of the bleak but melodic sound and really serves to demonstrate what great, understated musicians the band were: Will Sergeant's guitar work is as superb and restrained as ever, but it's the always ignored rhythm section of Pete de Freitas and Les Pattinson that are in really superb form (the second half of 'No Dark Things' is a real showcase). In any case, although I don't find the songs on Heaven Up Here as immediate and urgent as those on Crocodiles, it's still a fabulous album, and McCulloch's mightily pretentious poetry leaps from absurdity to absurdity and is delivered with such self-assurance you almost buy into it. In some ways I find Heaven Up Here relies too much on a de rigeur gloomy introspection and it's works least well when it slows to a crawl ('Turquise Days' for instance), and it starts to show it's age at those times too. Nonetheless, it's a great record.