"Teach me how to fight", by the Junior Boys.
Two of the best albums that I bought this year and which bear the copyright date "2007" were not in fact recorded in 2007. The first of them, which should come as no surprise to regular reader(s), is Neil Young's "Live At Massey Hall 1971", the missing link to beat all missing links (although, at least theoretically, "Chrome Dreams" would give it a run for its money). It's difficult to begrudge "Harvest" its massive success over the decades, but really, it's such a (typical) stylistic muddle that that success remains just a little startling. The Massey Hall recording, which sounds so good it could have been made yesterday, is, on the other hand, a Unified Theory Of Neil Young, circa 1971. Young as much as admits his mistake, in putting out "Harvest" instead of this, on the "removable" (don't try it) cover sticker.
The other one is the 2007 reissue - a whole three years after its original release! - of the Junior Boys' "Last Exit". Bart once explained to me the difference between the first two Mazzy Star albums by saying that "She Hangs Brightly" has the higher highlights but that "So Tonight That I Might See" is the consistently better record. Whilst one might disagree with the example given (personally, I have such a soft spot for "She Hangs Brightly" that I cannot listen to it objectively, but I think I know what he is getting at), one can use the description as a way to compare the two Junior Boys albums. There are four songs on "Last Exit" that cannot fail to make you go weak at the knees. "Teach me how to fight" is perhaps the most affecting of those; that recurring synth line hits me like it's 1981. (Or 2.) The second album, on the other hand (and this is where the Mazzy Star analogy entirely falls apart because one half of the JBs left between the first and second albums), doesn't reach the heights of unreleased tension that are so brilliantly employed on the debut, and yet it is a delight to listen to from one end to the other. (One might question where the music industry is headed - hey, there's a new idea - with seemingly instant repackaging of still-warm music (Boards of Canada's "Music Has A Right To Children", Fennesz's "Endless Summer") but (naughty) I didn't own "Last Exit" until I found this 2007 reissue second-hand a couple of weeks ago, AND it contains remixes by Fennesz and Manitoba, so at least in my case it serves several purposes at once. If you already owned the original album I don't know that you would be shelling out again.)
