Chances are that you have been wondering why it is that I have had nothing to say about the 2014 Woods album, "With Light And With Love". (And if you have been wondering that, then all I can say is, Get A Life.)
Let's just say that if I had written about it 18 months ago, what I would have had to say would not have been positive. My feelings were mixed: one the one hand there was a real sense that I had heard it all before. On the other hand, it seemed that the high-fidelity stereo sounds, something Woods had never offered us before, didn't sit at all well with their trademark scuzzy-George-Harrisonisms.
But, you know what? Fuck that. This is an awesome album. It sounds great. The songs are great. The title track is a no-holds-barred freakout rollercoaster ride, drugs not required. It stops suddenly, on, as they say, a dime, because how could it possibly end otherwise? (It works okay live, too.) But the gems on this album, really, are end-to-end.
I think, deep down, I knew this at the time, and that it would just take a while for my initial misgivings to fade into irrelevance; and that this is why I stayed my hand. (Or perhaps I was just lazy.)
Speaking of George Harrison, listen to "Full Moon". Homage never sounded so fresh.
I'm not sure what is more problematic: the fact that you can sing along to Queen's "Another One Bites The Dust" when listening to "Days Burn Blue", the last song on the new (and excellent) Darkstar album, "Foam Island", or the fact that I noticed that you can.
It goes to show: what you listen to in Year 11 never really leaves you.
(Note: in the video, which differs from the album version, what I'm referring to starts at the three-minute mark. But don't fast forward.)
Every year for as long as I can remember, I have put together a mix CD for Adrienne's birthday (which is today). Usually it is culled from a mixed bag of random off-cuts, thrown together with little or no regard for playability or continuity, good to break the monotony on long car trips but perhaps for little else. This year I attempted something a bit more scientific. (Only a bit more.) I had two songs that I wanted to use, and I decided to try to build a mix from the ground up, centred around those two songs, to see if I could do it. It was hard. I probably failed. It is also a little on the short side, 53 minutes inclusive of the closing 10-minute full-eighties 12-inch (comprising in itself, though, two songs, and no it isn't "Tainted Love / Where Did Our Love Go?"). Will she like it? I honestly don't know, and it would be in her nature to be too polite to say if she doesn't. The exercise has been fun. I probably won't do it this way again, though.
There were a few songs that came into my head as fitting perfectly, but which for various reasons I couldn't get to work. Chief amongst those was "Falling". There was simply no place for it, lest its delicate petals be crushed by the songs around it. It may be a song that can only exist in a vacuum of its own, to be followed by, and only by, an extended silence, so as to allow its many resonances to slowly fade. (If it was a primary-school child, its report card might read "Does not play well with others".)
Thus, I must present it here, on its own. Adrienne, this one's for you.
