Hypothetical mixtape: September 2013

If you were a lost soul wandering in the dangerous and murky backwaters of the internet in September last year, these are the songs you would have found. Actually, you would have found considerably more, but I have slowly filtered the list down to these essentials, so that you don't have to.

"Back to Nature", by Fad Gadget. Nothing to do with the very fine song by Magazine of the same name, but nevertheless notable in its own right, being both the first record by Mr Gadget, who went on to have a sterling career putting out electronic records on a Goth-industrial fringe, and also the second record released on Mute Records, also the first by someone other than label honcho Daniel Miller himself. (Although, this seems to be open to debate: the catalog number, MUTE 002, bears it out, but according to Wikipedia -- as of today(ish), anyway -- Silicon Teens' jaunty electropop take on Chuck Berry's "Memphis, Tennessee", another song I remember very fondly, came out first. It's all rather vexing, although, given that Silicon Teens turned out to be Daniel Miller in disguise anyway, ultimately not actually relevant to anything.)

"Tonight, We Fall (John Foxx and the Maths Remix)", by ADULT.. More fatback analog synths, although in this case we probably have to classify them as "retro", even though Foxx himself did sound like this back in 1979. Parts of this come across like a slowed-down version of DAF's "Der Mussolini", yet another fireside favourite. [Don't get too fancy -- Ed.] Elsewhere the synths are so huge you keep waiting for them to blow a fuse.

"All Night", by Icona Pop. This, on the other hand, is thoroughly modern. But a pop song, done right (as this one is), is timeless. I dare you not to jump around the room to this when it is played at high volume. Even if someone else is watching. How embarrassing.

"Jupiter", by Blackfield. Then we get the big, lachrymose strings, and the portentous piano, and it's like we're straight into Eric Carmen's "All By Myself", but this is not that song (mercifully) but another song, and it's not actually, once you get past the first 20 seconds, maudlin at all. (Well, I suppose it is, but within reasonable tolerances.) Mid-seventies pop-rock will never grow stale. What? This was made last year? Shoot me now. At least tell me they are from Canada. No? Damn.

"Mexico", by Firefall. Is it okay to hate The Eagles but to like music that sounds, largely, indistinguishable from The Eagles? Of course it is, nobody ever said I had to be consistent. The lead guitarist here may not be Joe Walsh, but he's no slouch. Bonus points for the mariachi interlude. (Postscript: it doesn't really sound that much like The Eagles, does it?)

"Summertime", by Booker T & The MGs. Oh that Hammond.

"Castles Made of Sand", by Four Tet. And old random stray Four Tet track, coming from his LateNightTales installment. You know the song. It's one of Jimi's. Whether you recognise it or not is an entirely different question.

"Tell Me What Is True Love", by Bert Jansch. Is Bert Jansch. Is good.

"Gnostic Serenade", by 3's a Crowd. Bands with both numerals and apostrophes in their name rarely make it big. (Now there's a challenge ...) That is the only possible reason for this mesmerising song being hitherto unknown. (Unknown to me, at least. Perhaps you knew better.)

"Sand", by Clear Light. You can be forgiven that thinking, after the first few seconds, that you were listening to "London Calling", by The Clash. You realise the error of your ways as the song rapidly morphs into what it actually is, a sixties guitar-driven garage smoulderer.

"Pink Dominos", by The Crescents. This is probably what The Beatles, or at least the kids who then turned to The Beatles, had been listening to just before The Beatles became a thing. You can hear them in it, but you can also be astounded at what they turned it into.

"Cocaine Blues", by Escort. There are other songs called "Cocaine Blues". This is not any of those. Escort have done their homework so well, there are no clues that I can spot that indicate that this wasn't made 35 years before it actually was. I hope they take that as a compliment.

"Hills of Katmandu (Patrick Cowley Mix)", by Tantra. Disco on steroids. And divers other substances, not necessarily all legal. Enter at own risk.

"Rainbow Circles (Beatless Version)", by Kaito. Whereas this is disco, or rather Kompakt-style techno, on, well, I don't know what: helium perhaps? All the bottom-end propulsion has been extracted from the track, leaving a residual pulse and an overall sensation akin to being lighter than air. Nice.

"Flares", by Land of Light. It's not every day you hear a piece of music that transports you back to David Sylvian's solo masterpiece, "Brilliant Trees", or the second disc of "Gone to Earth", but this does that trick in such a way that, even after 11 minutes, you don't really want it to end. Ah, so that is what the "Repeat" button is for.

Song of the day

"Lentil Nightmare", by Neil.

It seems to me that a parody of a particular genre of music, with the passage of time, becomes indistinguishable from the genre of music that is being parodied, as long as the musicians involved know what it is they are having fun with.

Here is the evidence. (In this example, and this may or may not be important, the genre concerned was already a few years past its moment in the sun when this was made. It's easier, perhaps, not to sound dated when the sounds you are making are, themselves, already dated. No, I don't understand what I'm saying either.)

The fun starts around one and a half minutes in. If you don't know The Young Ones then (a) this may make no sense at all and (b) I feel sorry for you. Don't forget, you are here for the music. And, I suppose, the vocal, uh, "stylings". (Bonus: listen out for the voice of Stephen Fry.)

2014 is not 1964

Volkswagen has had its share of negative publicity of late. But at least it no longer runs ads like this. (Actually, old VW ads are frequently surprisingly modern in tone and design, but this one seems to have been a victim of its times.) From the New Yorker, issue of 15 August 1964. You can open it in a new window by clicking on it. From there you can enlarge it, the better to read the offending message.

Song of the day

"The Dolphins", by Fred Neil.

Over the last couple of years we have been quick to recommend to anybody who will listen, and to many who won't, the Irish movie "The Guard". Now its director and lead actor, John Michael McDonagh and Brendan Gleeson respectively, have returned in a new, much darker, but still excellent film, "Calvary". It's a kind of riff on "High Noon", in its own way. You know from the outset that things are going to end up with some kind of a showdown (but on a beach rather than on the main street). The writing is perhaps not quite as crisp as it was in "The Guard", and it sometimes steers a bit close to cliche, but the wide cast of characters and the many stories they have to tell keep you interested. The Big Theme is what is the use of the Catholic church in Ireland in what has become, by and large, a godless society, and particularly in an environment where the church has been painted, and not without reason, as the bad guy. It's a large and weighty theme, and the comedy that is interspersed with the drama can sit a bit more awkwardly than it did in the earlier film. But, you know, it's a powerful picture, set in a bleakly stunning landscape, and Gleeson is extraordinary. Also of note is the appearance of Dylan Moran, cast somewhat against type as the nouveau riche Lord of the Manor. (Only slightly against type: he's still a bastard.)

"The Dolphins" appears early in the film. It's a good omen.

Song of the day

"Twin Oaks Pt 1", by Ryley Walker.

It seems like every few years there is a folk-rock revival. Either that or folk-rock never really goes away. It certainly adapts and mutates (the story, up until more or less the present day, is well told in Rob Young's massive book "Electric Eden"), as it did a brief while back through the insertion of electronic music, as heard to best effect in the work of Tunng. ("Bullets" is a fine, but not the only fine, example.) Young includes the output of the Ghost Box label in the tradition, but the link there, I reckon, is slightly tenuous -- the philosophy might be similar, though I can't quite hear it explicitly in the music.

What you also get is younger musicians coming through who are situating themselves squarely in the tradition, yet don't sound exactly like what has come before: the reason for that being that every generation leaves its distinctive marks and, in doing so, itself becomes part of the tradition. And so, what we find in the new recording by Ryley Walker, "All Kinds of You", are distinct echoes of a singularly modern band, Espers, who added their own (indefinable -- by me, anyway) incremental touches to what could be called the Pentangle school of British folk-rock. (And whose most recent album, "III", which is a few years old now, I still can't draw myself away from, assuming I would even want to.) (By the way, I don't even know for sure if "folk-rock" is the term I should be using here: I can hear purists' teeth being set on edge as I type.)

Whatever it is, though, "All Kinds of You" is a totally successful record on its own terms. Certainly it contains traces, sometimes strong traces, of other music. Espers, yes, for sure, you only have to listen to the first song, "West Wind"; Pentangle and Fairport Convention are there, too, and there is a clear connection to Bert Jansch in Walker's affectless/undemonstrative vocal style. There are also hints of Nick Drake (not least in the album cover photo) and of what I would term, in my uneducated manner, Appalachian music (which, again, I apologise if I am getting this wrong). Dude can play guitar, too.

The surprising reference, for me, at least, comes at the start of "Twin Oaks Pt 1", which sounds so much like the work of Ed Kuepper that you half expect old Uncle Ed to start singing "My horses they ain't hungry, they won't eat your hay" at any moment*. It is an instrumental, though, so he doesn't. He was probably busy elsewhere, anyway: reworking "Eternally Yours" for the seven thousandth time or some such.

You can stream the entire album below (go right ahead); "Twin Oaks Pt 1" is the third track.



*Coincidence upon coincidence: Kuepper's "Pretty Mary" is actually Ed's rewrite / homage to an American folk standard, "The Wagoner's Lad", which, as "The Waggoner's Lad", was also recorded by Bert Jansch and John Renbourn. There you go. (And it's not just me saying this: go here.)

Hypothetical mixtape: August 2013

Movin' right along …

"Bat Bi Hiru Lau", by William S Fischer. You could break this down into a list of its component parts, but that ain't never gonna convey the madness, or the intensity, of what all of those parts add up to. Is it early fusion? Lounge? Library? Psychedelic funk? All of the above? You decide.

"I Know You Got Soul", by Eric B and Rakim. You may appreciate the irony that a song that is built from samples of other songs was itself cannibalised so as to aid in the construction of "Pump Up the Volume". All together now: "You got it!"

"How We Gonna Make the Black Nation Rise?", by Brother D and the Collective Effort. We interrupt this frivolous playlist for a political message. A WELL FUNKY political message. All together now: "Agitate, educate, organise!"

"Three Sisters", by Affinity. You should never walk past any record that has on its front cover the famous Vertigo "swirl". It's as if these records, many of which sank without a trace on release, have been sitting buried in a time capsule for four decades waiting to be dug up and appreciated. If it includes Linda Hoyle on vocals, well, just pretend it's your birthday.

"O Caroline", by Matching Mole. Matching Mole were formed by Robert Wyatt (whose "Stalin Wasn't Stalling" was inexplicably left out of my recent "fifty at fifty" list) upon the demise of his previous band, The Soft Machine. They released two albums. Their reputation would place them squarely within the British progressive rock movement, but that would not tell the full story. There is nothing prog rock about this song. I suppose you might call it prog pop (but I would rather you didn't); Wyatt's opening lines might also align it with PoMo. But you might also relax for a minute, stop your anxious handwringing and enjoy it as the majestic pop song that it is.

"Drip Dry Eyes", by Yukihiro Takahashi. Speaking of pop songs, Yuki Takahashi, of YMO, has always had an ear for melody. It would be difficult to argue that this doesn't sound "of its time" (it being, on one reading, just another song evoking the sound of Roxy Music Mk II), but I don't care about that, cos somewhere deep inside of me it is always 1981.

"Alamein Train", by The Pete Best Beatles. A deeply personal song about Cheryl.

"Bitter Devotion (Ewan Pearson Extended Remix)", by Simone Fedi. The ghost of DFA Records hangs over this record. But fear not, it's a benevolent spirit, in this case, the afterimage of an old friend that's not quite here any more, but not quite entirely vanished, either. Whenever I see the words "Ewan Pearson Extended Remix", I cross my fingers for something as remarkable as his remix of Cortney Tidwell's "Don't Let the Stars Keep Us Tangled Up", and this isn't that, but it does have a similar lightness of touch. The house piano is a neat fit, as it was on The Juan Maclean's "Happy House", and I'm not just making that point in order to bolster an otherwise tenuous DFA reference. Because I would never do that.

"Anytime Soon", by Andy Stott. Free music. On the internet. Seriously. Here. (If you wanted to spend money, you could do worse than pick up his "Luxury Problems" album. It's a keeper.)

"Lida Lou", by Monomono. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure that there is anything in particular to distinguish this particular song, except that we do love ourselves some seventies African vibe, which is what this is. (Nigeria, 1973.) And that's more than enough. Oh, plus, there's a wicked Hammond solo. At least I think it's a Hammond. It could be a Lowrey. Or a Farfisa. Who's to know?

"Azamane Tillade", by Bombino. Which brings us squarely to this month's Black Keys connection: African desert blues, as they say, produced by what's-his-name. I like that they've resurrected the old Nonesuch logo. Somebody knows what they are doing.

"Pink Dust", by SQÜRL. (Nice umlauts, yes?) You would think that Jim Jarmusch would be old enough to know better, but something seems to possess the white-maned enigma to indulge in a spot of noisy guitar sludge. You know what to expect if you have seen "Only Lovers Left Alive". And if you haven't seen it, what's keeping you?

"Spiritual", by Tom Verlaine. You can read about this here. Download it, too; the link's still good. Me, I'm lost for words.

It's just like Skype ...

... except it's basically useless unless you happen to live in New York, Chicago or Washington.

I found this ad in the New Yorker circa mid-1964. 

That Bell Telephone had this technology 50 years ago is surprising (to say the least). I guess the world wasn't ready.

Right-click etc for an enlargeable copy.

In ancient times

So, let me see. What, according to the "Goings On About Town" section of the New Yorker cover dated May 2, 1964, could I do in New York on the day I was born (Sunday, May 3, 1964)?

Well, I could go to the Village Vanguard to listen to Chet Baker. (Or I could wait a couple of days to catch the Miles Davis Quintet, on Tuesday, May 5.) Or maybe the "stalwart" Sonny Rollins, together with Roland Kirk's "foursome", at the Half Note. Hey, that's not a bad double bill. And Chico Hamilton is playing somewhere called the Gold Bug (85 W 3rd St).

On the other hand, I could always go to the movies. "Dr Strangelove" is playing. So is "From Russia With Love". Or I can be one jump ahead of the crowd by catching "The Pink Panther", which opens this week (although the New Yorker review isn't entirely favourable: "heavy-handed fun").

But what I am really interested in is E B White's unsigned editorial from the magazine, which, thanks to the miracles of the technology of the future, I am able to reproduce below (right-click etc for an enlargeable version). Taking the death of Rachel Carson ("Silent Spring") as his hook, White looks at the mistreatment of the natural world by America's corporations, specifically their use of chemicals, and despairs at its consequences and, more importantly, at the failure of government to do anything serious about it. ("The federal agencies concerned with the problem bicker among themselves" -- surely not!) It is a short, typically understated but brutal piece of writing.

Fifty years on, of course, the natural world may not exactly be thriving, but life hasn't died out (not yet); something was done (though never enough) about widespread unregulated use of chemicals; man, and many of those with whom we share the planet, lived to fight another day. In other words: we got out of that one.

And yet White's editorial continues to hit hard because, if you replaced "America's corporations" with "the countries of the world", and "use of chemicals" with "burning of fossil fuels", you could write much the same essay today.

I'm not sure how it is possible not to see climate change as a very serious threat to life on this planet. (Call me naive, but science, it seems to me, isn't something one can choose to believe or not believe depending on one's financial situation of political persuasion (the Pope may have put Galileo Galilei under house arrest, but the Earth still revolves around the Sun); science operates to demonstrate, as best scientists can with the tools at their disposal, that a thing is or that it isn't.) And yet the current discourse is against change, and the structural obstacles are so immense that the paradigm (or the "facts on the ground") would have to shift dramatically to galvanise the world into action. It is a lot easier to do nothing. My friend Alun thinks that this coming summer in Australia may well do the trick. I hope he's wrong (we have no air conditioning, and if Melbourne is hot, Canberra is usually hotter), but I also, thinking not only of myself, hope he's right.

Where am I going with this? Well, E B White's piece can work as a counter to such overwhelmingly negative thoughts. You can read it, you can reflect on the fact that over the intervening period we managed to put a man on the moon, and you can tell yourself that maybe, just maybe, we will find a way, despite our worst impulses, to get out of this one, too.

Song of the day

"The Price of Love", by Richard and Linda Thompson.

Tucked away, unannounced and unheralded, at the end of the second disc of the Rhino Handmade version of Richard and Linda Thompson's "Shoot Out the Lights" is a cover version of "The Price of Love", a song written by a couple of Everlys and taken to the top of the charts by Mr Bryan Ferry.

I have trawled through a lot of Richard Thompson recordings in my time, including several armfuls of covers, but I have never known him to do this song. Truth be told, it is not especially notable (more significant, in terms of the "canon", is the appearance of "I'll Keep It With Mine", delivered with feeling, and goodness knows what kind of subtext(s), by Richard and Linda), and the sound quality, unlike that of all of the other live tracks on disc two, is shocking, but it does contain a typically blistering, if brief, Thompson guitar solo. The appearance of Linda on this track is speculative.

I mention it at all, I guess, because Richard Thompson fans tend towards the obsessive, and because of the possibility that you may otherwise have missed it.

For a limited time, as long as nobody minds, you can listen to it here.

Song of the day

"DBF", by Eno - Hyde.

Or, Brian Eno 2014 = Neil Young 2012?

I had never made a particular connection between the careers of Bob Dylan, Richard Thompson, Neil Young and Brian Eno. But it is there: all of them (roll Ed Kuepper into the mix if you like, for some Australian content), in their own way, treat albums not so much as Major Artistic Statements as somewhat random and arbitrary snapshots of what they have been up to, or where their thoughts are at, or even how they are feeling on a particular day.

Eno perhaps less so, but, as the recent excellent overview by SFJ over at the New Yorker alludes to, Eno is a (non-)musician whose reason for continuing is the work itself, and an interest in seeing where a particular idea or collaboration might lead. Thus the fact that he might disappear (aside from his regular high-profile production jobs) for years at a time doesn't mean he is not working, only that nothing that he has created has, by whatever internal slide rule he uses, seemed to him fit for turning into an album.

When that moment strikes, though, there seems to be no stopping him. Whether his partnership with Warp has been conducive to his releasing albums on a regular schedule I cannot say, but after a decade or so in which Eno largely went missing from the record racks, he has, since 2010, been at the helm of five albums and an EP. These have, to my ears, been of varying quality, but "Lux", from 2012, is the magnificent pinnacle of his "ambient" work, and now we have "High Life", his second collaborative album in two months (not a typo) with Karl Hyde, whom you might know as a member of Underworld.

The first of those two albums, "Someday World", failed to hit its (or any) target. If the collaboration had ended there, it would have sunk without trace, a fleeting footnote in both of their biographies. "High Life", though, makes it work. (Hence the question raised at the start of this post. "Americana" was perhaps a slightly dodgy album in its own right (although I do love the way a sixties garage sensibility breathes life into such moribund entities as "Oh Susannah" and "Tom Dula"; plus, Neil Young's discography is not short of slightly dodgy albums) but as a warm-up lap for the enormity of "Psychedelic Pill" (an album about which I have significant reservations, but I think I can see what he was getting at; if nothing else, it just needed a bit more work -- and a sharpened butcher's knife to cut out the large amounts of fat) it at least makes some kind of sense.)

"High Life" is a wonderful record. It is dripping with a sense of the sheer joy of making music. Many of the tracks may be nothing more than sketchy ideas not fully resolved or developed, but they work just fine as they are, and these old guys are to be applauded for letting them go in this state. It is hard to see how they could have been improved. Eno's stamp, not surprisingly, is all over these tracks. (I am at this stage finding it difficult to isolate Hyde's influence, but even if it was no more than standing off to one side and encouraging Eno to follow his own instincts (which I'm sure is not the case) his time was hardly wasted, his joint credit hardly undeserved.)

What does it sound like? It sounds like David Byrne's guitar from "Remain in Light" together with that album's strangulated funk. It sounds like the backing tracks from "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts". (Curiously (or not), it sounds more like my idea of what a Byrne and Eno album should be than the actual Byrne and Eno album that came out in 2008, "Everything That Happens Will Happen Today", which was in many ways the diagonal opposite of "Bush of Ghosts". This might say more about me than about the record. It might also suggest that Karl Hyde and I were listening to the same records at the start of the eighties and were drawing the same things from what we were listening to. This would make Karl Hyde the ultimate Fanboy Enabler. There are worse things.)

Nowhere does it sound more like these things than on "DBF". You know those outtakes / incomplete ideas that were included on the CD reissue of "Remain in Light"? You could slip this track in amongst them and nobody would even notice. "DBF" is one of the shorter tracks on the album. It's a bit like the Energiser Bunny: wind it up and watch it go.

Song of the day

"Nostalgia", by David Sylvian.

Thirty years ago I first bought "Brilliant Trees", David Sylvian's first solo album, which, incidentally, was released precisely 30 years and one week ago.

I now know that the feelings "Nostalgia" describes are my default emotional state: an aching nostalgia. Whether this is just a by-product of growing old(er), or whether I have always been predisposed to missing what I no longer have, or even, maybe, whether this very song, which was no doubt still seeping its way inwards five years later, when (a) my father died and (b, and not unrelated) the world I had known fell apart before my grasping hands, I cannot really say. But Sylvian's music has long had a profound effect on me, and I can't really say with any confidence that it (in general, or this song in particular) has had no impact on the type of person I turned out to be.

Which is a heavy burden for a musician to carry, and not necessarily an invited one. Sylvian, as the lead singer and beautiful poster boy of Japan, had felt the many and intense burdens of stardom before he wrote this song, and, in breaking up the band, he intentionally started down the one-way road of dismantling those bonds. This album was the second step along that road. It is clearly the product of a different time: gone are the days when a young but impressive artist, consciously distancing himself from the trappings of fame, could command enough respect, and financial backing, from a major record label to be able to pull together a group of musicians of this calibre: Danny Thompson. Mark Isham. Ryuichi Sakamoto. Jon Hassell. Holger Czukay. Kenny Wheeler. (Also on the album are Sylvian's brother, Steve Jansen, and Richard Barbieri, who were both in Japan. It is interesting, I think, that even though Sylvian might be argued to have torn up their money ticket, he has continued to work with these two, and also with the late Mick Karn, throughout his career; or, perhaps more to the point, it is interesting that they have been prepared to continue to work with him, as if to say, unusually in this business, "we respect your decision and we wish you well".) This was an album that was never going to trouble the charts. (Although its single, "Red Guitar", was something of a hit, and, even if that was largely on account of name recognition, to say that its success was a surprise was, and still is, an understatement.)

Sylvian, on this album and on all of his work since, alone and in collaboration, has demonstrated a serene confidence. If "Brilliant Trees" was a statement of intent, it turns out to have been almost novelistic in the way it acted as a place-holder for all of the different trajectories his solo career would take. You may no longer be taking notice, but he is still writing his own story in his own way. And it is still a cracking good read.

Song of the day

"Liminality", by Fennesz.

It might be my imagination, but it seems to me that there has not been such a flood of compelling albums released so far this year as was the case in 2013. Certainly, new albums by Beck, Real Estate and (though this jury is still out) Woods are more than welcome, but the standout so far, for me at least, is "Becs", by Fennesz.

Over the past 10 or so years, Christian Fennesz has conveyed the impression of digging his own furrow through the sonic possibilities of guitar and electronics, untainted by whatever musics might be going on around him, or out there in the wider world. He may not be blinkered, but he is unquestionably committed.

"Becs" continues from where "Black Sea" left off. Critics are reading much into his return to Editions Mego as a possibly slightly backward step, and they are also reading this album, as a consequence, as something of a retread of "Endless Summer". It is true that the sun is peeking through the clouds throughout the new album. But if you listen to these two albums, and the two that came out between them, in sequence, I think you can comfortably say they are as linear as they are circular. Which is to say, they are, at the one time, neither of those things, and both of them. (This makes sense to me.)

"Liminality", which forms the centre of "Becs", runs over 10 minutes. It comprises a relatively simple and straightforward sequence of notes and chords. And yet it is the most emotionally draining piece of music I have heard for some time. There are a small number of songs that I can only listen to when I am on my own, on account of the listening experience being intensely personal. I can add "Liminality" to that list. The guitar playing is as exposed as Fennesz has ever allowed it to be. Yes, it is partially encrusted with layers of sonic gunk, which, by the way, doesn't at all interfere with what he is doing, but each individual note, each chord, sends out with it the unmistakable echo of tears cascading off the strings.

(Bonus: Tony Buck contributes drums that are so Necks-like you assume he was given free reign. As with his work in The Necks, he plays in a way that doesn't draw attention to his immense gifts.)

Hypothetical mixtape: July 2013

Something of an eighties theme drifts in and out of this month's enterprise. But first ...

"Sunny", by Bob Zellin. We begin with two point five minutes of Hammond B-3 extravagance. Pass me a mai tai, would you, dear? (Bonus: album cover of the month.)

"Into Your Arms", by Love Positions. In the annals of twee pop, it surely has never gotten much more twee than this. (If you like The Softies, you will like it.) If I was drawn to this song by the fact that it was written by Robyn St Clare, of The Hummingbirds ("Alimony" = one of the great Australian pop songs), it must have been subliminal, as I had no knowledge of that fact, or of the fact that The Lemonheads had some kind of hit with it. The things you learn.

"You Can't Be Told", by Valerie June. This draws, I would suggest, from the same cloth as Holly Golightly. That is, a top quality, albeit maybe slightly scratchy, cloth. It also happens to be this month's Black Keys soundalike, courtesy guitar and production by Mr Auerbach. You will also note the presence of Richard Swift on drums.

"Put Your Love In Me", by Tindersticks. Minimalist, haunting, dark (maybe even "dark wave"?) cover of a Hot Chocolate number: just synths, atmostpherics, and a rudimentary programmed drum track, and nary a trace of Errol Brown. Would work well as a film soundtrack, which is kind of handy because that's what it is.

"In My Car", by Real Estate. This is the answer record to The Dugites' "In Your Car". Actually, I just made that up. It is, though, a non-album track by the ever reliable, and seemingly still improving, Real Estate. Their new album is a doozy, too.

"The New Rap Language", by Spoonie Gee and the Treacherous Three. No, Carl, it's not the Sugarhill Gang. But you are right, they do "sound damn similar". This is the oldest of the Old Skool, and though it may seem a little quaint now, it was a revolution in sound at the time, returning pure language to the discourse of popular music. Before long it would largely evolve to a world of Uzis, ho's, cocaine, gold teeth and supercars. Give me, you won't be surprised to hear, the Old Skool any day. Also, a likely influence on Blondie's "Rapture".

"Que Pasa / Me No Pop I", by Kid Creole and the Coconuts present Coati Mundi. One of the great songs of the post-punk era, and an unlikely hit. This twelve-inch version trumps the one you probably remember from the radio by reason of the addition of the smooth grooves of what would usually be called a "prelude" but which in this case almost upstages the main part of the song. Was this the first Latin(o) rap song?

"The Throw – Levitational", by Jagwar Ma. Because I live under a rock, the only thing I know about Jagwar Ma is that they hail from Sydney. They probably sound nothing like this track, which is a typically mindbending twelve-minute acid-drenched psychedelic remix by The Time and Space Machine. It's all-or-nothing time. I'll take "all".

"Dream Girl", by SHINee. This piece of K-pop fairy floss would appear to be from some kind of K-oncept record: a three-part album with subtitles "The Misconceptions of You", "The Misconceptions of Me" and "The Misconceptions of Us". That's a lot of misconceptions. They should tread carefully. The song itself drives a straight line through pop music right back to (at least) the eighties. I dare you to listen to it five times and not be totally hooked. You should watch the video. Clearly, the Korean language has no equivalent to "understated".

"I'll Be Around", by Empire of the Sun. And speaking of the eighties (and speaking of Australian content, too! Snap!), this song is clad with a high-eighties veneer (but with just enough of a hint of lo-fi to identify it as the product of the new century). It drifts on a bed of high-disposable-income synths and reverbed guitars, not a million miles from the second coming of Roxy Music. A clear global smash, only thirty years too late!

"Don't Stop The Dance (Idjut Boys Dub)", by Bryan Ferry. Did somebody mention Roxy Music? This ghostly edit of a Bryan Ferry song from 1985 is the epicentre of smooth. Apparently Ferry himself commissioned a bunch of remixes of this song. It seems a strange idea, this far removed from the original recording, but it's a song, and indeed a musical, uh, philosophy, that has informed rather a lot of recent so-called dance music. (See, for example, Todd Terje, who enlisted the old man himself to perform on his latest album, providing vocals for, of all things, a stately cover of Robert Palmer's "Johnny and Mary", in which Ferry sounds more like Bill Fay than Bryan Ferry.)

 "Don't You Know", by Jan Hammer Group. Hi, I'm Jan Hammer. You may know me from the theme music for "Miami Vice", which was about as eighties as eighties television ever got. I also did other music. But nobody ever talks about it.

"Cocaine", by J. J. Cale. RIP.

"Summer Breeze", by Seals and Crofts. Yacht Rock 101. The original and the best. Well, not necessarily the best, if I'm honest: you should check out the Isley Brothers' version some time.

"I Go Out", by Steve Mason and Emiliana Torrini. I have already sung the praises of Emiliana Torrini. Steve Mason was a member of The Beta Band, one of the more notable skewed-pop bands of the oughts. They may seem to be an Odd Couple, but the result speaks for itself.

Song of the day

"Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again", by The Angels.

Am I ever gonna see your face again? Sadly, no. RIP Doc Neeson.

A few words about "Held in Splendor", an album by Quilt.

You might expect a band bearing the name Quilt to be all soft, cozy and warm. This Quilt is not like that. This Quilt is raspy. It has sharp edges. This year, so far, has been relatively quiet (cf last year) in terms of major new records, and I have been enjoying Quilt's second album, "Held in Splendor", rather a lot, at least in the sense that I have been giving it considerably more airtime than I would have been able to do if it had been a busier time. In other words, I gave it the chance to bite me, and it did.

This gives rise to a question: what is the use of a record like this in 2014? The times that it harks back to were simpler times, certainly less saturated with readily available music, and the records that emerged from those times were instantly embraced and continue to be well regarded, perhaps even loved (perhaps even obsessively).

But these times are not those times, and a record like this, which is easy to listen to, easy to like, and which has oodles of memorable hooks and plenty of good old grunt, is as likely as not to get lost in the fog of the endless cycle of new releases. Which is what seems to have happened with "Held in Splendor": it has been made, with considerable care and love, by talented people who know the eras they evoke and who have taken pains to translate their favourite sounds of those eras into something the ears of today would be comfortable hearing, and yet it seems to be on very few people's radar, only a scant few months after its release, and may well end up appearing on few, if any, end-of-year lists. Its sales may or may not be enough to cover expenses. It is enough to break your heart.

Imagine if you made this record. How happy you would be. You gave it your best shot and came up with something you would be proud to hold up and say "I did this!" But the model is broken. Being good enough is no longer good enough. (Being anything other than a scantily clad pop tart may not be good enough any more. Oh the times we live in.) Of course, it's not always, or only, or ever, about money. Few of Quilt's obvious influences would have been able to dine out on the proceeds of their own record sales, but their records continue to live, breathe, and have influence even today. With so much music out there now, the chance of getting even that kind of traction has largely vanished.

But I sound like a broken record. It is what it is. You might as well tilt at windmills. People will continue to make music; their expectations of reward will be lower than before. Maybe that means people will make music for the right reasons: because they want to. For its own sake.

The record? It picks up the sounds of the late sixties (both the Byrds jangle and the 13th Floor Elevators oomph), and the sounds of the first generation to be influenced by those sounds (the so-called Paisley Underground of the mid-eighties, specifically the Dream Syndicate, Rain Parade, and the shaded overlapping area of that particular Venn diagram, Opal), and filters them through such of the sounds of today (and the recent yesterday) as Woods, Real Estate and, my perennial perceived precursor, Electrelane.

The neat trick they pull, perhaps with be above rant in mind, is to run many of the songs into each other, as if to snub their nose at the pick-and-mix attitude towards records of many of us these days; as if to say: here it is, take all of it if you like, or none of it, but don't just pick the eyes out of it. (The risk being that many people, faced with that choice, would opt for "none of it".)

Nevertheless, because this is where we are at, you can find individual songs on the internet. Here are a couple. I hope you like them. I think you would be hard pressed not to.

The Things They Carried

Or, Fifty at fifty.

"Pink Moon", by The Chills.

"Wuthering Heights", by Kate Bush.

"Marquee Moon", by Television.

"1/1", by Brian Eno.

"Music for 18 Musicians", by Steve Reich.

"Trees and Flowers", by Strawberry Switchblade.

"Transmission", by Joy Division.

"Love Will Tear Us Apart", by Joy Division.

"Atmosphere", by Joy Division.

"Twenty Four Hours", by Joy Division.

"Blue Monday", by New Order.

"Party Fears Two", by Associates.

"What Goes On", by Velvet Underground.

"Dream Baby Dream", by Suicide.

"Are 'Friends' Electric?", by Tubeway Army.

"Candy Skin", by Fire Engines.

"Roadrunner", by Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers.

"Another Girl, Another Planet", by The Only Ones.

"I Feel Love", by Donna Summer.

"I Feel Space", by Lindstrom.

"Autobahn", by Kraftwerk.

"This Charming Man", by The Smiths.

"Tiny Tears", by Tindersticks.

"Jaffa Boy", by Birds Nest Roys.

"Circumspect Penelope", by Look Blue Go Purple.

"Ghost Town", by The Specials.

"Cruiser's Creek", by The Fall.

"Song to the Siren", by This Mortal Coil.

"Dr Mabuse", by Propaganda.

"Save Me", by Aimee Mann.

"Shivers", by Boys Next Door.

"Cattle and Cain", by The Go-Betweens.

"Sexy Boy", by Air.

"Brimful of Asha", by Cornershop.

"Eternally Yours", by Laughing Clowns.

"Revelator", by Gillian Welch.

"Don't Point That Thing at Me", by The Clean.

"Love's Not Good Enough", by Skyhooks.

"Golden Brown", by The Stranglers.

"Watching the Detectives", by Elvis Costello.

"New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84)", by Simple Minds.

"A Forest", by The Cure.

"Uptown Top Ranking", by Althea and Donna.

"I'm In Love with a German Film Star", by The Passions.

"Back to Nature", by Magazine.

"Ever Fallen in Love", by Buzzcocks.

"O Superman", by Laurie Anderson.

"I Heard It Through the Grapevine", by The Slits.

"Baby I Love You So", by Colourbox.

"Map Ref 41°N 93°W", by Wire.

Hypothetical mixtape: June 2013

Gosh, it feels like only yesterday that we last had one of these. When, in fact, it must have been ages ago: I was only 49 then ...

"Feel It All Around", by Washed Out. Otherwise known as the theme music from "Portlandia", the show that skewers hipsters from the inside. To borrow a line from Whit Stillman, some of them think it's a documentary.

"Wishing You Were Here", by Chicago. From Portland to Chicago (see what I did there?). The calling card for this song reads: backing vocals by Al Jardine, Carl and Dennis Wilson. The Moog line is a bit weird, and, yes, I know, it's Chicago, but oh, those backing vocals ...

"Dream Captain", by Deerhunter. Deerhunter are no Beach Boys, but you can't deny that Bradford Cox has as fine an ear for melody as any songwriter of the "modern era".

"Gun", by Emiliana Torrini. From the album "Me and Armini", another song from which appeared on an ealier playlist. I am mesmerised by the cavernous largeness of the electric guitar on this song. I should probably just go out and buy the album.

"Tube Stops and Lonely Hearts", by Annie. It's not far from Iceland to Sweden, but the distance from the previous song to this one is like the journey from out of the darkness and into the light. Which might well not be even remotely grammatical. I hope nobody is watching.

"All That Matters", by Kolsch. What happens is, Kompakt keep tossing out these perfectly crafted pop songs in the guise of dancefloor fillers. Don't be fooled.

"Bipp", by Sophie. You can make pop songs out of the most unlikely of materials. This, for example, sounds like what you would get if you had sat down in 2013 to make a sequel to "Warm Leatherette" using most of the same raw materials. It sounds just as harsh as that, and just as in your face, but you can also carry it around in your head for days.

"Would You Believe", by The Hollies. I just mis-typed this as "Wold You Believe". That would make no sense at all, obviously, but wold is one of my favourite words. I wouldn't go so far as to say that this is one of my favourite songs, but it is very good, with its George Martin-esque ever-so-slightly avant garde string arrangement, its Bee Gees-esque vocals, and its Scott Walker-esque sense of drama. That's a lot of esques.

"Take It Easy My Brother Charlie", by Astrud Gilberto. It is always a pleasure to listen to the honeyed vocals of Astrud Gilberto. The song you (probably) know. The version you (possibly) don't. What are you waiting for?

"Besame Mucho", by Apollo 100. This month's WTF moment.

"Girl You Move Me", by Cane and Able. The first couple of minutes of this monster track come on like some serious Funkadelic doolally. Gradually it morphs into the kind of soul/funk thing that wouldn't be out of place on your blacksploitation soundtrack of choice. So it's all things to all people, really.

"Remember to Remember", by Rick Holmes. Actually, maybe this is this month's WTF moment. Who can tell? Nine minutes of slow groove that doesn't once deviate from its chosen path in all of that time, augmented by some very tasty synth noodling, and all the while operating in the service of Rick Holmes's recitation of lines / titles from various notables, from John Coltrane to Stevie Wonder to Sydney Poitier, ending with the plaintive cry of "How long will it take?". Recorded in 1981, it's like the Civil Rights movement never happened. Produced by Roy Ayers, no stranger to blacksploitation soundtracks himself.

"Poor Wayfaring Stranger", by Shelton Kilby. The groove on this might also suggest blacksploitation soundtracks, but don't be fooled: it is actually from an album of gospel music. If church sounded like this, I could, just possibly, be saved. What? What's that? It's too late? Damn. (Oops.)

"Water Wheel", by Steve Gunn. The title of this charming instrumental brings back memories of one of John Elliott's less successful business ventures. ("Wow, that guy's got a big nose", said the 14-year-old recently, on having a glimpse of the great man during a promo for one of those "grumpy old men" television programmes I can no longer watch on account of their being too close to home.) This is, of course, sheer coincidence and of no relevance whatsoever to anything. The appearance of Helena Espvall, of Espers (who have been much too quiet of late), on this album is more to the point, and suggests loosely where this music might be coming from: a generation of kids who grew up listening to John Fahey records, and to the whole psych / rock / folk late-sixties UK axis, but who, unlike recent predecessors bearing the "freak folk" and/or New Weird America tag, have chosen what to my ears is the preferred balance between Pentangle, Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span, on the one hand, and The Incredible String Band, on the other. But what do I know?

"Yuba Reprise", by Date Palms. English music of a particular type from the late sixties and early seventies continues, as this and the previous song illustrate, to provide a rich seam from which young prospectors, from generation to generation, continue to dig up gleaming nuggets. This song draws from a different lode, the same one, perhaps, that Spacemen 3 hit upon in the course of their own excavations 25 years previously. Well, as we say here much too often, "it's all good".

"The Viaduct (Kid Loco Remix)", by The Pastels. No matter how much music you listen to, there will always be vast tracts of arable musical land that you haven't had the chance to harvest. (Seems to be metaphor month around these parts.) Like, I know nothing about The Pastels. There, I said it. And anyway, I suspect they don't sound much like this. A languid 4/4 beat eventually trails off into wispy clouds of, um, bliss. It's a perfect way to finish this thing off.