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Randy Newman, Good Old Boys (1974)
I’ve said it before – and I think it with every album by Randy Newman, whenever I’m playing them or even thinking about playing them…it’s hard to pick a favourite. But this is consistently in the top three. This is probably my favourite (well, this and Sail Away, uh-oh, here we go…) I fell in love with this for the writing in particular. As good of a reason as any to take the plunge into Randy’s world. But this album tells a story. The narrative is about Johnny Cutler, southern everyman. And initially it was going to be a full concept album (some would argue it still is). Cutler is the guy getting drunk at the weekends at the BBQ, the one pointing out that as much as they might be “keeping the niggers down” it’s the northern chap that has [only] set the nigger free to various cages – and he names housing projects. It’s Cutler that needs “a whole lot of medicine” to pretend he’s someone else, and who has to get drunk to tell his wife he loves her and that she’s beautiful. It’s extraordinary writing. I was thinking about that a bit recently – as Malcolm Gladwell unpacked some of this in a recent podcast episode. It’ a marvel to me that songs like Rednecks, Louisiana 1927, Kingfish, Guilty and Mr. President (Have Pity On The Working Man) could all be on the same album. It’s a marvel every single time. You might have heard the news, Randy Newman will play his first NZ tour in February 2020. I doubt I’ll be able to afford, nor does anyone care for reviews or reviewers anymore – unless they’re ‘Yes Men’. So I’m glad I have this album and love it so. I’ll be there listening to it at home no doubt on the night of the show. Like Larry David singing “Still crazy after all these years…” Well, between Larry and Randy, I’ll be in good company, spiritually speaking. Read More »

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August 22, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

Poem: so

i haven’t got the
energy to be
totally embarrassed

which is why
you are reading
this now

or at some
stage.

(whenever)

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August 22, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

Lukid: Drip (ep)

Lukid

Drip (ep)

Arcola

Luke Blair’s day-job is being the boss at Glum Records. By night – or on weekends – he is Lukid. And his Drip EP is a weird and wonderful blip-bop loop-fest of tape-stretching, static-hiss boogie-down ambient-crawl techno that has been released on Arcola, one of Warp’s sub-labels. Warp of course is spiritual home to this type of art-installation music. And home to Aphex Twin, a necessary – and obvious – influence on almost all of this ‘type’ of music.

Certainly there’s something of the Aphex to Lukid’s Drip pieces.

The opening, title track takes us right back to Selected Ambient, a naïve melody draped over a chugging-but-still-naïve rhythm track. It’s staring-at-the-wall, after-club music. It’s wallpaper-musique.

A skin-crawling pulse beckons beneath Head Shrinker, beguiling and creepy. Wonderful too!

The Clappers is a throwback to that warm-bubblebath ambient sound of the early/mid-90s alt-techno and closer, Conked Out, wouldn’t have been out of place on Aphex’s breakthrough Come to Daddy EP – it’s like Flim and On had a baby.

So that either means nothing to you. Or the world. But either way for 20 minutes at a time you can lose yourself in Lukid’s Drip. And you’d be fucking wise to.

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August 22, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

Cowboy Junkies: All That Reckoning

Cowboy Junkies

All That Reckoning

Latent Records

For over 30 years now the Cowboy Junkies has been allowing its music to waft past, set to permanent slow-burn, they’re like an alt-folk Crazy Horse. Theirs is a deceptively angry music too, that soft coo of Margo Timmins’ voice could, so often, be telling you the most sweet and beautiful things that it sneaks up with you (as here on Missing Children and The Things We Do To Each Other, to pick just two examples) when she (and the band) is actually mad.

Brother Michael Timmins does a similar trick with his guitar-snarls. You should be wary of what’s on the end of the leash, especially when he actually lets it go, but still your natural instinct is to want to pet it.

These Junkies never went away. They have kept making fantastic music and All That Reckoning is surely among their very best.

Close your eyes as you listen (Shining Teeth) and you might be swept all the way back to Caution Horses.

I think perhaps the thing I love most about this band is how utterly aware they are of what they’re doing and the way they’re doing it.

“I’m gonna start this song in a dark low whisper/Out of respect for the story that it tells”, Margo sings in the opening scene-setting lines of Nose Before Ear. It’s like Springsteen and a detective novel merging. She might as well be singing about brother Peter Timmins’ approach to building a drum-groove. And we can certainly feel that this has always been Michael’s method, it could almost be a lyric purloined from a note-to-self he etched on his guitar case back in the early 1980s.

All That Reckoning bristles with political rage too. It simmers. (They always fucking simmer).

As devastating as a late-night call, as perfect as a swan on the water.

That this band still has things to say, and is doing so in largely the same way, remains as quietly remarkable as any of the very best moments from across their near-faultless catalogue.
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August 22, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

Shit That’s Good! Crap Albums I Love: #3 – Fleetwood Mac, “Behind The Mask”

Fleetwood Mac, Behind The Mask, 1990

People either do not know this album – or they’ll tell you they wished that it never existed. But I reckon it’s, maybe ironically, the closest Fleetwood Mac came to ever sounding like an updated Rumours – ironic because, for a start, Lindsey Buckingham had left the band at this point. And in a move that possibly went on to become a legal precedent the band chose not one but two guitarists to try to replace him.

Behind The Mask features, I think, several gems. Maybe the only song you do know from this is Save Me – which is yet another tremendous Christine McVie song. Read More »

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August 21, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

Poem: Souled

he sold his
soul, got
a bargain price.

the price was
right, they’d
eat two-minute
rice tonight.

another starving
artist and some
more stories of
struggle and ordeal
but for the price
of a soul he’ll
make it through for
at least one more meal.

and that makes him
smart – realistic. and good.

you’ve got to meet
the market – and/or
meet at the market
in order to get
some food.

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August 21, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

Sweetman Podcast # 181: Marek Peszynski

Welcome to episode 181 of Sweetman Podcast with support from our sponsors – T Leaf T, Yeastie Boys and La Petite Chocolat.

Now – as you probably know, as well as the usual platforms (this site, soundcloud, iTunes/Apple) you can now get to Sweetman Podcast on Spotify – follow it there and have it saved in your Spotify library.

I first met Marek Peszynski nearly 20 years ago. We worked together for The CD Store chain. Marek became the manager of a dedicated vinyl store – Chelsea Records. He was also an influential DJ and tastemaker around town. Nowadays he is the Marketing Manager for Orchestra Wellington. He still DJs. He’s also an occasional tour promoter, a father and family man and a collector of records, sneakers, pop-cultural artefacts and pop-art. Read More »

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August 21, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

The Vinyl Countdown # 261

Prince, Originals (2019)
So far, I have to say, they’ve hit it out of the park with the official posthumous Prince releases. I previewed this one a while back (unofficially) My prediction was the Kenny Rogers song would be ‘discovered’ as a lost-classic, a gem, and I’ve no way of knowing if that’s the case, it was just a feeling I wanted to put out in to the world – but the version that has surfaced, the “Original”, the demo is pretty fucking good! The same is true with many of the songs here, almost all of them. Bangers. Gems. Masterpieces. Quirky, eccentric, wonderful. That’s what Prince did. And this is just some of what he did and gave away/locked away. There’s more. And we’ll get to hear more. And I can’t say I’ll be there to buy all of it. But I had to have this. And I’m glad I paid the money for it to have it on double LP. It’s very special. And the best of it, the very best of it is amazing. Read More »

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August 20, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

Kate Tempest: The Book of Traps and Lessons

Kate Tempest

The Book of Traps and Lessons

American Recordings/UMG

Kate Tempest has been dazzling audiences with both words for the page and words meant for a stage – via volumes of poetry, plays, a novel and albums – and most often there’s been a rage to her voice that is palpable.

She delivered one of the finest shows I’ve ever seen.

But her latest, The Book of Traps and Lessons, shows a calmer voice; here she’s empath – still raging, but the shake in the voice this time is in understanding that the current injustices of the world are hard to beat, and though we must try we just seem to find ourselves beaten up (“I’m all spirit, but I’m sinking”).

Musically, there’s a stylistic change to suit the new delivery and the integrity of these words. Grimy beats are gone, replaced by soft, swirling washes of keys – Rick Rubin the natural empath (as producer) to Tempest, now softening the storm of her words.

But there’s a shape to this album – it’s less a book of poems, as previous albums have felt, and more a stage-play or novel. There’s the gut-punch of All Humans Too Late, delivered without musical backing. A poem. A set of observations about the sad world of living for show online (“Our minds are racing into the dead/We hurl everything/Against the stop of the blank hand that muffles the mouth/But we can’t win/”I see how blind I’ve been”, said all prophets, too late/All humans, too late”).

There’s a sadness to the voice where once there’d be a show of anger. It’s a different show. And far more telling.

When the music returns, a warm synth-line to accompany Hold Your Own (long a highlight of her spoken word sets) we start to feel the ‘concept’ of this album, the shape, the flow. This is a set of grievances and observations around them. Tempest doesn’t profess to have the answers but she wants to take the time to talk it through.

Spoken-word albums are not for everyone. This one should be Government-issued. A set of headphones and a copy of this wisdom. Each household required to have its occupants taking turns letting this wash over them.

And somewhere in this collection of profound thoughts, Tempest might just have created the love-song of the age. Where once she was speaking to everyone, hoping to be heard, yelling and stalking the stage, here, on Firesmoke she shows something personal; a glimpse that even if not all can be good there’s (hopefully) something for us all, someone for us all, some reason to want to be, to still be here. To be hopeful that the damage will clear.

“I bathe in this fire / it warms without burning, compels without force / and it turns without turning the world / so please, you keep your purpose, your poise and your journey / I’ll be by the fire.”

There is a voice for us. One that speaks from – and to – experience. And in the correct trajectory of an artist Kate Tempest’s world and words and wisdom continues to grow. This is her finest statement to date. But there will be more. And she continues to be one to listen to. To learn from. To love.
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August 20, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

Poem: Note to Self-Loathing…

people with guitars
on their shirts usually
don’t play so well,

I thought as I
sat with a pen
in my hand.

I’d never remember
that to write down when
I got home, I wouldn’t
tweet or post it – would
just think it and then
forget it.

people with guitars
on their shirts
usually don’t play
all that well,

and writers aren’t
nice in the moment when
the pen is in their
hand,

chasing deadlines or an
audience, or some accolades

making nasty quips
as if they’ll later
stand as some
form of philosophy.

I should be forced
to wear a shirt
with a typewriter
or computer-keyboard
on the back.

one of those nerdy
little plastic pocket-
protectors out the front.

a row of yellow
biros in there, mostly
blue. One red in there
too. Unused.

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August 20, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

Ezra Collective: You Can’t Steal My Joy

Ezra Collective

You Can’t Steal My Joy

Enter The Jungle Records

Oh thank fuck for ears! Because, good lord, almost everything is wrong with this record…right up until you listen to it. The band’s name, that album cover, a record called You Can’t Steal My Joy – it’s just as well we don’t judge books (or albums) by their cover (even though a lot of us actually do).

When this particular letterbomb arrived I thought, ‘here we go…’ Roots-reggae no doubt, several songs with ‘Jah’ in the title. A lot of wish-fulfillment ideals to worry on.

But no.

Turns out this is a banger of the modern-jazz variety. Ezra Collective has impressed at the Fabric club and released a couple of EPs ahead of this debut full-lengther. They are leading lights in the London jazz scene and provide plenty of Afro-cuban and reggae rhythms within their idea of modern jazz and groove. Huge, warm basslines, upbeat drumming and fantastic use of horns and keys.

There are two ‘songs’ with guest vocalists arriving in the hinge of the album. Jorja Smith here sounds better than she does on her own recordings, a little touch of Amy Winehouse even (Reason in Disguise) and then Loyle Carner is in downbeat-mumble mode for What Am I To Do? These songs are fine but actually Ezra Collective does better when just pumping out the instrumental glee.

The almost tongue-in-cheek reggae feel on a song called Red Whine, The hi-steppin‘ Quest For Coin, the fiesta vibe to Chris and Jane, and the deep musical mantra (Kamasi Washington-esque) to King of the Jungle are the instant, easy highlights.

But there’s a lot in and on this record. The title track is a dancefloor classic – well as much as jazz ever offers dancefloor-classics, the sly hip-hop vibe to cool opener, Space Is The Place, sets the tone.

It is utterly joyous. And this is something no one can steal. Not even some grump that nearly made their mind up it was a shit band-name, cover and title. What does any of that matter? Not a jot. Put this on and lose yourself in some quality music. A fantastic vibe throughout. Brilliant.

Just goes to show you eh…

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August 20, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

The Vinyl Countdown # 262

Serge Gainsbourg, La chanson de prevet (2019)
It’s not that I was in the market for a Serge Gainsbourg tote bag, but I’m always in the market for some of Serge Gainsbourg’s music and this compilation (of material from 1958-1961) just happened to come with a free tote bag. Which is just fine. I haven’t used it much yet – it’s a slim record-bag, for your recent purchase. But I like the idea of it. I like the idea of anything by Serge too – the good and the bad. The mediocre. It’s all fascinating. Add the history of his drinking and naughtiness, the god-like status and the crumbling insecurity; a towering ego built as mere façade. All of that is interesting. Totes bags too. But it’s the music that comes first. Always. Read More »