Idlewild's 100 Broken Windows

Listening to music from your past when in a moment of turmoil always seems to take you back to a simpler, more secure moment in your timeline. Undoubtedly, this is in part down to hindsight being an exacting art but it's more than that. Music can work as a touchstone in this world ever in flux. It reminds you of something stable at the centre of your core. If you still love this band you listened to as a kid then you haven't lost everything of who you were back then too.

This is what springs to mind as I revisit 100 Broken Windows by Idlewild. 'It's a better way to feel when you're not real, you're post modern'. I wonder if the hipsters I see wandering about my neighbourhood in Shoreditch follow this mantra. The first time I ever heard of Gertrude Stein was when I listened to Roseability and even when I studied her at university in Glasgow, Roddy Woomble's words followed me back up to Scotland and floated around my head all day after lectures.

A truly great album is one that can sit untouched for years and then when you do dust it off and put it on it has transformative power. As much as I want to skip through to my favourite tracks, every time the next song comes on I am reminded of why I loved it in the first place even if it had faded in my mind and I think to myself 'oh, I'll just wait until this one's over until I put on Actually It's Darkness'. In the end I know it'll come all in it's own time. Probably just the way they engineered it to in the first place.

I challenge anyone who grew up with 90s/early 00s indie (you know, before Fran Healy and co. spoilt it with The Invisible Band - I was going to say The Man Who but then I remembered I really like Writing To Reach You) to listen to this album and not break out into a giant heart-warming smile as you remember the good times.

Even the interruptions of the incessant Spotify ads can do little to dampen the enjoyment of listening to this album from start to finish (incidentally the best way to listen to almost every album). A touchstone like this can help you to take stock of your life and your position within it. You can see how far you've come, changed, (even evolved perhaps?) and you might even get a clearer vision of how far you've got left to go and the way in which you might get there.

Even if it doesn't quite send you on a mystical quest, I would recommend that everyone who reads this stops everything they're doing right now and finds an album that they haven't listened to in years from an earlier era in their life and put it on from start to finish and just simply enjoy. My Christmas present to you all, if I could give one, is that I make you remember how good music can be and how fantastic it can make you feel. Be a kid again for an hour or so and love it.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Radio Silence...

Apologies for my online absence over the last 6 months, it's been an exceptionally busy time and I just dropped off the radar whilst I've been engaged in other things. However, you may or may not be happy to hear that I'm back to stay. It'd take me too long to catch you up on all the individual links to articles so instead here's a permanent one to all of my DMG work past, present and future...

DMG ARTICLES

There's about 11 new ones up there but my newest is a review of Trail's new single 'Killing Sun'. You may remember that I reviewed their single 'Prism' last year. Check out the new review to see how far they've evolved in that time (or how far my opinion of their music has evolved at least).

Keep your eyes peeled for plenty of new articles on the horizon guys!

So much done and so little time to tell you about it...

It's been a long time since I've posted and for that I am eternally apologetic. I've published a couple of articles on Suite101 in this time but I don't really think the site is for me. Still, I've included links to them below for your viewing pleasure,

Is Urban Farming a Tenable Solution for UK City Dwellers? (Suite101)

Roll Deep Ft. Jodie Connor – Good Times (single - Suite101)

Apart from these little beauties, I've been down in Brighton, covering The Great Escape Festival 2010 for the Daily Music Guide. The whole experience was fairly intense and I met some incredible people whilst I was there. For a full run down of all 3 days, check out my reviews below,

The Great Escape 2010 - Day One (13/05/2010)

The Great Escape 2010 - Day Two (14/05/2010)

The Great Escape 2010 - Day Three (15/05/2010)

As always, comments and feedback are very much appreciated! I should be posting up some new writing soon, but in the meantime I hope you enjoy this little lot.

New music and Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip.

Hey guys.

Sadly back in the bad old UK again. On the plus side there are some tasty new articles abounding for you to sink your teeth into. Check out my first features article on DMG,

The Rise and Fall of New Music

I've also been scrutinising the new album from Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip,

Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip - The Logic of Chance (album)

Overall, it's been a busy time lately. I'm also starting to write some more politically focused articles for Suite 101 but I'll set you up with a link to my profile once my first article has been published. The first one should be about urban farming so keep your eyes peeled.

Gil Scott-Heron

I went to see Gil Scott-Heron with Talib Kweli on Friday night in downtown Brooklyn as part of the Black Writers' Convention that was taking place this weekend. It was an incredible experience. One that I want to write more about soon in fact, but in the mean time I thought I'd post something that I wrote about Gil about a month back, having just listened to 'I'm New Here' for the first time. I hope you all enjoy my strange rambling tangents in this piece.

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At some points in musical history, special attention must be paid, and this is one of those times. The release of Gil Scott-Heron’s first album in 15 years heralds a return to some sense of the genuine which seems to have been lost in these shiftless times of horror stories and vacuous, paper thin excuses for recording artists that will do what they are told and force feed you sludge until it spills out of your mouth in a stream of putrid, broken crotchets and quavers, indistinguishable from each other in a droning mess.

‘I’m New Here’, well aren’t we all? After the circle turns so far don’t we all feel new again when someone reawakens us with songs to agitate the soul. Gil’s heart has started to beat again in our breasts and he is calling his soldiers to war and the revolution we bring will not be televised, the revolution will NOT be televised. Broken up through the decades but never truly destroyed, the strength of Gil was forged from what he was given by those the state call broken though he was not from a ‘broken’ home. Bitter sweet smells of the streets and the South emanate from the strings and the bars on which hang the delicate protraction of notes tugging at the cat guts from inside us, used to be plucked and create our screams.

We are ready for our commands that come from the first. Of unfolding gently, with pride and respect, the covers of the box like the body of a lover, parting their legs,

"There is a proper procedure for taking advantage of any investment.
Music, for example. Buying a CD is an investment.
To get the maximum you must

LISTEN TO IT FOR THE FIRST TIME UNDER OPTIMUM CONDITIONS."

Yes sir. Would you ignore orders from such a man, such a man.

There is a travel in his words that transports us further than a bus, train, plane, automobile ever could. Far beyond the realms of our imagination and the stars whom, after all, are nothing more than burning clouds of gas and rock and one day will die just as all of us will, and one day so will Gil. As he reminds us on this album, that is why parents give birth, give life to follow their lives with some semblance of themselves and educate you with the ideas they feel fit to be carried forth unto your world.

Soul claps enunciate the power of running down the street towards the trouble. Trouble you know is there but draws you further in to their mesmerizing swirls of pain like a magnet draws that metal home even when it sure as hell doesn’t want to go from its own world of contentment. This is the power of words. This is the power of Gil Scott-Heron, and don’t you ever forget it.

Feeling sparkly and sore.

My first week in New York City is drawing to a close and the city's been kicking my ass and giving me all kinds of aural joy at the same time. Sunday night saw me head on down to the Jazz Standard with my boyfriend to watch Charles McPherson do his thing with four other very talented gentlemen. Willie Jones III in particular provided some mad drum solos that blew our tiny little minds to smithereens. Even better than that he turned out to be a really sound bloke that was happy to shoot the breeze with us after his performance. The smell of BBQ pervading the air in that joint was intoxicating but we were already filled to the brim with soul food and spaghetti (I tell you if I continue living here I'm going to gain at least 5 stone!)

I'm really interested as to why jazz has such a strong grip on this city more than anywhere else I've ever been. Not just that it was created in the States, but the fact that it still encapsulates a mood and a feeling that is so present here. It's as if Jazz is able to breathe in the smell of the New York streets and express the anguishes and celebrations of its people almost in the same breathe out. I'm looking to explore this further in a feature piece but I'll let you know when I've had some more time to mull it over.

Dragging us back to the life of London, my review of Putney born Four Tet's new single is now up for your hungry eyes on DMG.

Four Tet - Sing (single)

Let me know what your thoughts are on both the review and the single itself. On the listening front, I've been digging the new Gorillaz album, Plastic Beach, and I've been hitting up an old Gil Scott-Heron album, Bridges, a fair bit too.

For my sins, I watched the new Lady Gaga video on YouTube and remembered why I don't watch music television. Read into it whatever you will, but to me it just seems to me to be a weak excuse to have scantily clad women dancing about in a jail, and then a diner. Not that I mind beautiful women gyrating in, well very little to be honest, but those who put Gaga up on a pedestal of women's liberation, fighting for trans and female rights against male oppression are deluding themselves. Be honest about it. If you like the video, it's not because symbols of the patriarchal system are being poisoned or that Gaga is burning sunglasses made of cigarettes as a sign of monetary wealth to oppose American imperialism, it's because the thought of Beyonce and Lady Gaga being 'very bad girls' does naughty things to you or you like the clothes and drama or maybe you just dig the beat. In its own way it's fairly entertaining, but let's leave it at that shall we?

We live in Brooklyn baby!

Back in the Big Apple and I just can't wait to get back into the music scene over here. Should be going out tonight for some Jazz, Hip Hop or maybe a bit of both (if I'm lucky!) I'll be sure to report back about that, but in the meantime check out these reviews I got published just before I left the LDN.

David Guetta ft. Kid Cudi - Memories (single)

Goldfrapp - Rocket (single)

Remember how I was feeling a bit mean not long ago? When you read the David Guetta review you'll see why!

Let me know what you think guys and I'll be checking back in with you soon.

I'm feeling mean tonight.

So unsuspecting artists beware. It's about 2am and I've been up all night writing but I feel oddly satisfied. There's something about the dark and the night that seems to get the words flowing through me (I'm not sure why that is but it definitely beats getting blocked!) So, whilst I wait for 3 new single reviews to get published, here's a link to my review of Wiley's new single which has just gone up.

Wiley ft. Emeli Sande - Never Be Your Woman (single)

If you like grime, it's probably worth your while at least having a listen. Hope you enjoy and, as always, let me know what you think!

Almost forgot to mention...

So I hope you all had amazing Xmases and New Years (both Western and Chinese!) To belatedly ring them all in with you, here's my review of Niyi's new EP.

Niyi - Jungle Fever (EP)

Hope you dig. Let me know how the year of the tiger's been working out for you so far!