It looks like I spoke too soon.
"Grinderman 2". In which Nick Cave and his band of hairy brothers continue to blur the line between Grinderman and the post-Mick Harvey Bad Seeds. The point of first Grinderman album, as it seems to me, and as I think I have said before, was not in what it was, but in what it led to: a rejuvenated Seeds on "Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!" But now, with Grinderman not so much a case of shaking the comfortable old sack to see what comes out as a legitimate musical project with its own history and, perhaps, defined parameters, the distinction, if there still is one, between Grinderman and Seeds is, as the lawyers would say, a fine one Okay, so perhaps Grinderman are a bit more feral, and certainly more rough around the edges, than (at least recent) Bad Seeds have tended to be, but the common purpose, the "bleed", if you like, between the two Grinderman albums and "Lazarus" is such that by now you can just as easily reach for Grinderman as for the Bad Seeds for your essential Nick Cave fix. (There are moments on this album when you wouldn't necessarily know which one you had picked up.) Album of the year? I don't suppose so, but in another year it coulda been a contender.
"Le Noise", by Neil Young. Two words come to mind when I listen to this record: "Ed Kuepper". One man, one guitar, and the mother of all effects pedals. At a couple of points during the course of the record I could swear that he was going to start singing "When I First Came To This Land". Listen to the start of "Someone's Gonna Rescue You" with your eyes closed. Make up your own mind. (I think the particular Kuepper record I have in mind is the live album "With A Knapsack On My Back".) Young's vocal register is a fraction higher, but there isn't a lot in it. You couldn't really say the child is the father of the man, because they are both no longer spring chickens, but you know what I mean. Or maybe you don't. Daniel Lanois cops a lot of shit, but come on: "Time Out Of Mind". "Apollo: Atmospheres And Soundtracks". "Yellow Moon". That Emmylou Harris album. And now this remarkable beast. What's a guy gotta do? Seriously. Album of the year? It might be, if only I could get the chance to play it at the volume it deserves to be played at.
"Belle And Sebastian Write About Love", by, well, duh. It's been a long wait. It's another good B&S album. We really are spoiled, aren't we, when we can even entertain a discussion about the relative merits of this album versus that album or whatever. Just enjoy it. That's what it's for. Album of the year? Yes, of course, if I was in (yet another) cardigan phase of my life. So, no. Or at least, not today. (Irrelevant aside: note the coincidental titles of these two, not dissimilar, records, also bearing in mind that both appeared after a lengthy hiatus suggesting we would never be blessed with them -- "Belle And Sebastian Write About Love". "Bart And Friends Make You Blush". See what they did there?)
"North", by Darkstar. It continues to amaze me how much raw emotion can be worked from the sounds made by machines. The Human League. Kraftwerk. Telefon Tel Aviv. Junior Boys. Air (although their palette is broader). And now Darkstar. Some records, and I'm not talking lyrics here, I'm talking sounds, or combinations of words and sounds maybe, have a certain, well, I don't even know what you would call it -- a "quality"; an "X factor" -- that hits me like a punch in the stomach. If "North" doesn't have that effect on you, I can imagine it might leave you seriously underwhelmed, because its surface alone, in the context of what it is going to be, inevitably, compared with (Hyperdub long players, of which there have been few, in particular; the future of dubstep, in general), may well, as your stockbroker might say, surprise on the downside. (In which case I feel sad for you, but I understand.) Me? I have a feeling that this record will be with me for a long, long time. Album of the year? I think it might have been, if only I had enough time to take it in, to absorb its lessons, to live in it. And you can't do that in a couple of months.
