tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62696562024-03-14T02:05:23.513+11:00Farmer In The City"Music will keep happening and you might like some of it or even a lot of it but it will no longer be yours" - Luc SanteUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1603125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269656.post-65998787282177054232021-01-17T08:57:00.000+11:002021-01-17T08:57:14.707+11:00Consumer Advisory This is now officially the old site. I have relocated to here. Update your bookmarks etc.Thank you for your time.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269656.post-29013094174233150972020-12-22T20:56:00.000+11:002020-12-22T20:56:53.513+11:00Of the year 2020By far the least noteworthy aspect of this unusual year is that it threw my normal listening habits out the window. Working from home has had its advantages, but investigating new music wasn't one of them. Thus, there are probably things that aren't on this list simply because I haven't got to them yet. Nevertheless, here are eleven (not ten, because while literally nobody needs another list Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269656.post-65384156288502659582019-12-19T16:01:00.000+11:002019-12-19T16:01:42.875+11:00Of the year 2019You have been holding out all year for the official Farmer In The City year-end list. (You just didn't know it.) So here is that thing.
Consider this as a list of records I want you to hear. They are not necessarily the "best" of the year. They are certainly not the "biggest". They may not even end up being the ones I listen to the most (Beck, as usual, is likely to gain that crown, given the Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269656.post-87254172773789201732018-12-09T13:32:00.000+11:002018-12-09T13:32:05.856+11:00Of the year 2018We interrupt this break in transmission to list the ten albums that most captured our attention this year. Normal scheduling will not be resumed for quite some time.
Nils Frahm - All Melody
The Necks - Body
Jon Hopkins - Singularity
Jon Hassell - Listening to Pictures (Pentimento, Volume One)
The Aints! - The Church Of Simultaneous Existence
Ryley Walker - Deafman Glance
Rolling Blackouts Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269656.post-67986770405700681322018-07-01T17:37:00.002+10:002018-07-01T17:37:55.427+10:00Fare Forward Voyagers
Here’s the thing. Between holding down a mentally exhausting day job, and working on another project that, like this blog, involves "writing in my spare time", I have (as may have been obvious) struggled to keep this blog what might even loosely be called "fresh". The time has come for me to make a choice. It seems sensible to concentrate on that other project, get it out of the way, and Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269656.post-19152366624609352502018-06-30T20:49:00.000+10:002018-06-30T20:49:21.961+10:00Song of the day"Tom", by Fennesz.
I don't really get this whole vinyl revival thing.
In my youth (he says through his dentures), we listened to records because the sound quality was better than cassettes. (Which, perhaps unsurprisingly, are also getting a revival.) But CDs, when they appeared in the mid-80s, blew records away. Sure, the initial CD onslaught brought with it some well dodgy "remastered classicsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269656.post-41142067823744355872018-06-26T19:36:00.000+10:002018-06-26T19:36:51.600+10:00Song of the day"Laugh", by Tara Jane O'Neil.
Tara Jane O'Neil's self-titled album has been floating in and out of my peripheral vision since its release, early last year. Every so often, one of its songs reveals itself in clear focus.
"Laugh" sounds entirely spontaneous; it has the lightness, the looseness, the couldn't-care-lessness of someone newly exposed to the joys of making music. That Tara Jane O'Neil Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269656.post-71228339400510755732018-05-19T16:38:00.000+10:002018-05-19T16:38:07.675+10:00Mix of the day"DJ-Kicks", by Forest Swords.
Speculation: if Forest Swords did a mixtape, it might sound like this.
Actualisation: he has; and it does.
The DJ-Kicks series has been one hit after another, from Kruder & Dorfmeister to Actress to The Juan Maclean to Moodymann. It's no surprise that they would pick up Forest Swords. It should also be no surprise that the choices herein are an impressive, andUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269656.post-72291555346803073592018-04-24T18:43:00.000+10:002018-04-24T18:43:10.794+10:00Hypothetical mixtape 2.07To these ears, 2018 is off to a relatively quiet start. Okay, the Khruangbin and Nils Frahm albums are definitely keepers, the new Yo La Tengo is just what I didn't know I was waiting for (although it's probably not the best entry point for neophytes), and I am intrigued by the just-released album by Minami Deutch. (Also: "Selectors 5", by Lena Willikens. Yes, that.)
So for the time being we Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269656.post-12429908283994999492018-03-24T12:34:00.000+11:002018-03-24T12:34:08.231+11:00History lessonThe United States of America, as well as coming up with what must be, in retrospect, one of the least Google-able band names ever, are probably best known today for their self-titled debut album, which was clearly a building block for the Broadcast sound.
Of some marginal interest, then, both to Broadcast fans and to historians of the late sixties (and in particular the narrow, sometimes Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269656.post-87454197430525290122018-03-12T14:04:00.001+11:002018-03-12T14:05:36.510+11:00Hypothetical mixtape 2.06Let's just.
"Lord It Over", by Dylan Golden Aycock. You are thinking you could be listening to a Ryley Walker track here. You would be wrong, but not that wrong.
Bonus: here it is, unaccompanied. And at greater length. Whatever works, I suppose.
"High Tide", by Mythic Sunship. More sun-drenched psych-tinged guitar playing here, although on this occasion it might be argued they have Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269656.post-48451114605529911562018-03-10T15:01:00.000+11:002018-03-10T15:01:48.850+11:00Song of the day"My Trade In Sun Tears", by James Elkington.
It has been weighing on me that I was unable to find a place in my 2017 year-end list for James Elkington's "Wintres Woma". If only a top-10 list could go up to 11, like Nigel Tufnel's guitar amp in "Spinal Tap".
Oh well. Life tends not to be like the movies.
Anyway, just because "Wintres Woma" didn't make the list doesn't mean I can't give it a Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269656.post-39854359533884038122018-02-10T15:25:00.003+11:002018-02-10T15:25:59.706+11:00Hypothetical mixtape 2.05"I'm back in the saddle again ... I'm baaaaaaack ..." -- from a song by Aerosmith.
"Gonzo", by James Booker. Back in the very dim and very distant past, I did a one-hour radio show of a Wednesday night on a country community FM station. It was copious amounts of fun, subjecting the farmers and other unsuspecting locals to sixty minutes of largely post-punk and other anti-social musics. But as anUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269656.post-6654316689896045492018-02-04T14:31:00.001+11:002018-02-04T16:12:19.731+11:00Song of the day
“Turn Around”, by Dungen & Woods.
Dungen are a band that, over time, have perhaps so perfected their own sound as to have become almost invisible. It seems that they may have recognised this, as their most recent releases have been drawn from some incidental music they did for a 1926 animated film, together with an album’s worth of remixes of same from Prins Thomas (admittedly this turnsUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269656.post-59961394589665778242018-01-26T14:06:00.000+11:002018-01-26T14:06:59.554+11:00Song of the day"Smile", by The Fall.
Even though Mark E Smith went through so many Fall members that if they all turn up to his funeral they will need a bigger church.
And even though Fall albums have appeared on more record labels than you even knew existed.
And even though (not unrelated to the previous point) there is a ridiculous number of rarities collections and live recordings out there, most of whichUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269656.post-26379719384280000742018-01-21T14:35:00.004+11:002018-01-28T16:51:41.904+11:00Song of the day
“Holiday House”, by Peter Lillie And The Leisuremasters.
I first became aware of what might be called the “Carlton scene” when as a young boy I bought a copy of “Horror Movie”, a seven-inch single by a band called Skyhooks, who had captured the attention of some of the more adventurous boys at Fish Creek Primary School (a pretty small number), largely on account of their smutty lyrics, Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269656.post-54724984598465317452018-01-02T11:12:00.001+11:002018-01-02T11:12:42.025+11:00Hypothetical Mixtape 2.04To start this one off, we are jumping back in time to the second half of the 1990s, when Grumpy Warren's Record Paradise was the shopping destination of choice, a place where you might just, if Bruce Milne didn't get there before you, pick up some lovely vinyl specimens from the lounge and library music era. (You also learned that not every Martin Denny record was what you were expecting. So be Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269656.post-16296856639192892272018-01-01T15:31:00.000+11:002018-01-01T15:31:05.389+11:00Song of the day"California Dreaming", by Denial.
Enough time as passed since the "minimal/synth wave" revival that Veronica Vasicka can now make a dignified re-entry into the world of archival compilation. This she does, early in the new year, with "The Bedroom Tapes". "California Dreaming", by Denial, is the first offering from this new record to be released into the wild.
One thing I can never have enough Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269656.post-38001404598008103602017-12-30T11:58:00.001+11:002017-12-30T11:58:45.523+11:00Hypothetical Mixtape 2.03And a one and a two and a one two three four. Yes, it's another random collection of songs found on the internet at one time or another.
"Mamshanyana", by Batsumi. This is labelled as South African jazz. The music was made in Soweto in the dark days of 1974, but (or should that be "because of which"?) it could hardly be more joyous. It also bears a striking similarity to "Astral Weeks", althoughUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269656.post-76792481397814312802017-12-28T18:03:00.000+11:002017-12-28T18:03:59.917+11:00Song of the day "Maria Tambien", by Khruangbin.
If you are one of the (increasingly fewer) people who could afford to overindulge during the Christmas season, this song is presented to you as something of a palate cleanser. Enjoy. In moderation.
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269656.post-48070064738632381392017-12-23T15:24:00.000+11:002017-12-23T15:24:01.844+11:00Of the year 2017So I have been putting off doing this post, in part because I can't quite justify including "A Deeper Understanding", by The War On Drugs, and I keep thinking that if I listen to it one more time its mysteries will surely become clear to me.
It still hasn't happened yet. Maybe just one more listen ...
It's weird. I fell head over heels for "Lost In The Dream" the first time I heard it. What's Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269656.post-5687612252001939702017-12-09T15:34:00.001+11:002017-12-09T18:18:26.264+11:00Songs of the day
“Memphis, Lancashire”, by Jack Cooper.
”Cremated (Blown Away)”, by The Proper Ornaments.
Hands up if you like your pop jangly. So, that’s all of you. As I thought.
A bit of history. In the shape of a fairy tale. Which is appropriate, given that every time I hear something new by these guys I have to pinch myself to check if it is real.
Once upon a time there was Veronica Falls. (“Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269656.post-67954392785131145022017-12-05T21:10:00.000+11:002017-12-05T21:10:26.491+11:00Song of the day"Fallin' Rain", by Link Wray.
This would have been a fair pick for song of the day anyway, given the recent high levels of precipitation across the south east of the country. But it also, lyrically and perhaps also sonically, captures the mood of these strange times in which we find ourselves.
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269656.post-81630165825168180602017-11-26T13:06:00.000+11:002017-11-26T15:52:23.786+11:00Song of the day
“It’s A Long Way There”, by Little River Band.
There is an Apple Music playlist called “I Miss The Seventies”. The more I listen to it, the more I am inclined to think that this might be true.
It has also caused me to wonder whether I should have taken Little River Band more seriously.
Maybe they were two bands in one: the purveyor of lowest-common-denominator singles (if I never Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269656.post-2199113016147502602017-11-23T18:28:00.000+11:002017-11-23T18:28:38.400+11:00Song of the day"Get It Up For Love", by David Cassidy.
So often, the frustrated "teen idol" changes tack in the interests of demonstrating some new-found maturity. So often, such attempts are, in their own way, no more listenable than the stuff they made their name with. "Teen idol" is maybe the toughest pigeon-hole to fly out of, and it was perhaps inevitable that David, like so many others before and since, Unknownnoreply@blogger.com