We came, we saw, we borrowed, we listened, we returned:
Johnny Cash "The Essential Johnny Cash": one of the many two-cd retrospectives to hit the shelves recently. We have also had a go of the Sly Stone one, which reveals some juicy nuggets, early and late. As for the late Mr Cash: it may be illegal to say this, but his work from the early 70s onward isn't that good. There. Brief pause. I think I got away with it. There seems to be way to much patriotism, religion and dull sentimentality. Not only that, there is also the Highwaymen to think about; and U2. Oh dear. June Carter Cash as a singer is way too much of a belter for my liking, especially on the live recordings, e.g. "Jackson", where she comes across as, say, Dan Quayle in the wake of Cash's Bill Clinton, quiet, charismatic, understated yet in his own way extraordinarily powerful.
Boards of Canada "Geogaddi": it is when discs like this turn up in your local library that you realise that Canberra isn't too bad a place to be. Oh boy I love this. Its blend of childlike innocence, aching nostalgia, lurking sense of dread, and analog synth sounds hits me right where I like to be hit.
Various Artists "Poptopia": a curious release from the Rhino stable. I'm still scratching my greying hair to figure out the point of it. A collection of mostly fairly dull guitar-driven pop, predominantly from the mid-80s on: one indispensible classic in the Bangles' "Going Down To Liverpool", some passable songs by the dBs and Plimsouls (but far from their best work), "Tell That Girl to Shut Up" by Holly & The Italians, which I haven't heard for probably 15 years but which often drops into my mental jukebox nevertheless (but doesn't sound as good as I remember it; funny, that). The front cover mocks Lichtenstein; the back cover mocks Warhol. Neither of whom could really be said to be associated with the era.
Photek "Artificial Intelligence": drum'n'bass from about 1997. Leaving aside that my knowledge of the genre fits neatly on the back of a postage stamp, with room to spare for my discourse on, say, acid house, this record does everything that I always wanted d'n'b to do: the mathematical rhythm tracks and stabbing bass lines causing involuntary spasms not entirely unrelated to dancing but not that close to it, either. And when the upright bass kicks in about three-fourths of the way through the album, well, I suspect that is what the experts (links at right) call the "punctum".
