SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW

In a prefect world. I'd be able to claim that all the great music I have in the vinyl/CD/tape/mp3 collection was something I had discovered off my own back. But I'd be a big fat liar.

All my life, I've relied heavily on other folk bring great stuff to my attention, and I've often paid tribute to Jacques the Kipper for all the compilation tapes he put together in the early to mid 90s in which he filled many gaps in my knowledge after I'd lost touch with things for a few years as I pursued a career and a stupid first marriage.

More often than not, I would try and track down many of these singles/LPs, and illustrated above is the cover of a great single that came out in 1990 that was first brought to my notice on a C90.

mp3 : Robert Lloyd - Funeral Stomp

Robert Lloyd was the singer in the early 80s post-punk band The Nightingales - a group I should know more about, but who just passed me by. They released three well-received LPs before breaking-up in the middle of the decade. Robert Lloyd was signed by Virgin Records but after his 1990 solo LP flopped, he was dropped. The Nightingales reformed again in 2004 and released an album in 2006.

All of that is an abridged rip-off of something that appears in wikidepia. As I say, I'm more or less ignorant of the work of Robert Lloyd/The Nightingales, and would be delighted for the views of regular or occasional readers.

And returning to the theme of other folk passing on great new songs.....

I've just come back from a visit to Tacim and his 8/1 blog. Tacim writes everything in Turkish, of which I know not a single word. But the mp3s that he provides are usually a real treat. And through him I found this:-

mp3 : St. Vincent - Now Now

Again, I must plead ignorance, but research (ie my space) has thrown up the following:-

St. Vincent is the band of singer-multi-instrumentalist, Annie Clark. The 23- year old is a veteran guitarist for two musical armies, The Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Steven's touring band.

Marry Me, St. Vincent's debut record, will be available on Beggars Banquet July 2007.

On Marry Me we see a smartly crafted deluge of guitar, bass, and beats pulsing forward with warmth and immediacy alongside Annie’s classy soprano. Her lyrics can be weird or tongue-in-cheek or dead serious, capturing verily what it feels like to be 23 years old in America and caught up in the delirium of love blues and wartime blues and the various swashbuckling adventures of existence.

Horns and strings cry out brassy and full-bodied over digital keyboards. Songs rock out vigorously, break down into squiggling post-noise-rock deconstructions, roll out mellow and slow-flowing as a river. Backing harmonies and kiddie choirs loom in the distance, rise, and lilt above the stately grandiosity. And she keeps good company. David Bowie’s longtime pianist Mike Garson shows up on two songs, as does Brian Teasley from Man or Astro-man but, mostly, it’s just Annie, a multi-instrumentalist for a new era.

On the basis of one song, you can count me in........