Cheers, Jon. Tragically I've been singled out for redecorating duty over this year's bank holiday, but I have high hopes of doing the Towersey thing in '09.

Seriously groovy, Andy. It goes straight in my shuffle.

Linus - the Cloetta Paris track on that mix is indeed I Miss You Someone, easily the best of the (um, five) tracks of hers that I've heard. Hope you enjoy Sally Shapiro.

Another dollop of praise for Andy, great recording, I really enjoyed it and has gone into my MP3 collection too.

I've been listening to The Kinks a lot lately, a band I'd never really got into except for the really obvious stuff which is generally unavoidable. I didn't even know they wrote "David Watts", such was my ignorance of the band. I find it incredible that for a period of about 6 years, between 1965 and 1971, they released 7 utterly faultless albums, not a single bad song, bad note nor bad line in any of them. They approach so many styles and adapt them effortlessly, garage rock, skiffle, folk, bossa nova, cockney sing-a-longs, psychedelia and straight up pop. I just can't begin to imagine what it must've been like to be Ray Davis during this period, soaking up everything around him and churning out an amazing body of work at such an incredible rate, it's simply awe-inspiring.

It's a bit embarrassing to have lived with my head in the sand for so long but it's great to be hit for six by a band you'd never fully appreciated before (suppose I've got the internet to thank for this too). Great f*cking band, the only negative point I can give them is that their brilliant music inspired sh1te like Pete Doherty.

Yeah, the Kinks are great. And massively underrated.

Tragically I've been singled out for redecorating duty over this year's bank holiday, but I have high hopes of doing the Towersey thing in '09.

That's a shame. I tend to go to a different folk festival every summer, so I doubt I'll be around for it next year.

Have now moved onto the last album by Alicia Keys, whom I adore. Much more my cup of tea than that CSS album.

the Kinks are great. And massively underrated.

The Kinks are massively under-rated?

They seem to escape the plaudits The Beatles, Who and Stones receive. I'd always previously assumed they were nestled somewhere near The Animals in terms of artistic greatness amongst the original British Invaders. Britpop raised their profile somewhat but I'd always grown up thinking they were just "You really got me", "Sunny Afternoon" and "waterloo Sunset". How come songs like "Lazy Old Sun", "Australia", "Sitting by the Riverside" and "Monica" weren't there too? (I could add loads of others but these 4 are probably my personal favourites at the moment)

Like I said, maybe my head has been firmly buried in the sand for the past few decades of my musical discovery but it seems like The Kinks were up amongst the best. They weren't just a band that sand about Englishness, which is what they're mostly portrayed to be.

They are usually rated a notch below the Beatles or Stones, but also one above Kaleidoscope, the Zombies, Marmalade and a number of other very brilliant contemporaries.

The Kinks always make me think of Frank Sidebottom, to be honest.

Just lately...

Héctor Lavoe: Comedia a magnificent, magnificent album. The first track, El Cantante, is one of the few songs that, when I'm in a salsa club and it comes on, I'm not sure whether to keep dancing, or to just stop and listen. It's also the favourite song of an absolutely gorgeous Spanish girl who seems to fancy me a bit (and who got a brief mention in the Copa Libertadores thread on Football, and has recently appeared in my life again after a couple of months away)...

James Brown: Hell My word, Coldblooded is a filthy song. So is Hell. And Sayin' It And Doin' It... wow.

Frank Zappa: Hot Rats It's been a while since I listened to any Zappa so I stuck this on last night. I'd forgotten how good it is to the extent that it actually seemed like I'd never heard the album before. The Gumbo Variations is about as good as anything Zappa did. Superb.

And right this second, I'm going through a first listen of an 'Essential Collection' 2CD set of Northern Soul, which is fucking brilliant.

That Essential collection sounds like a great care&share candidate there, Sam...

Victoria - Tenebrae Responsories (Tallis Scholars)
Ryan Adams - Love is Hell
Leonard Cohen - Ten New Songs
Anonymous 4 - Love's Illusion
Talk Talk - Colour of Spring (long time no hear...what a great record!)

linus wrote:

QUOTE:
That Essential collection sounds like a great care&share candidate there, Sam...

I've managed to actually get it onto my hard drive today (my computer wasn't playing ball with filling in track title and artists a few days ago, and I was buggered if I was typing it all up myself at 2am), so when I've gone through it all properly I shall see what I can do.

Cheers Sam, no hurry. I reckon that one will be a very popular download here.

Got a bunch of stuff I'm enjoying at the moment, pick of the bunch is Cities of Glass by AIDS Wolf. Can't really form a solid opinion about the name, it definitely grabs your attention and it's a bugger to ask for at the record shop if the guy's never heard of them but overall it's a bit wank. However, the album is great, Beefheart inspired hardcore spazz-rock from Montreal, every track's is about 2 and a half minutes long and choca-ful of ideas and, most importantly, they rock.

Also bought the Soul Jazz compilation Ragga Twins Step Out by the Ragga Twins, some of the stuff stands the test of time and then some whilst there are a few tracks like "The Homeless Problem" which sound dated to buggery.

Couple of albums I'm dipping into are the Gang Gang Dance album "Saint Dympha" and "Rediscovers the Rings of Saturn" by X-102.

I'm finding the Gang Gang Dance album quite bland, their last albums were very hit and miss with the good stuff really standing out above the experimental ramblings that would take up a good part of their work. With this album the experimental ramblings are gone and for some reason a lot of what made them exciting has gone with it. On top of that, the singer is now a bit more understandable and her lyrics are fairly mundane offerings. On the whole it's left me a bit underwhelmed.

The X-102 album is going to take some time, on first listening it was all just a bit too vast and epic. I've now listened to it about 4 or 5 times and it's growing on me more and more. I'm really not into this Jeff Mills with an orchestra stuff but with Mad Mike Banks alongside him you get the impression his feet are more firmly on the ground. The mixture between ambient soundscapes and thumping techno seems just right, I reckon this could be one of my favourite albums of the year given time.

It took a while, but this is starting to be a really good year for music. imo.