This Week I've Been Mostly Listening To...

Ryley Walker – Primrose Green (2015)

Ryley Walker’s second album Primrose Green is set to be released at the end of March, less than 12 months after his debut, All Kinds Of You. For years beforehand, Walker had been involved in his local experimental free/noise music scene, but it’s as if this wonderful folk-rock just pours out of him. It feels effortless, unforced and – essentially – sincere.

It came as a slight surprise to me to find out that he was from Chicago, as many of his touchstones are British: the intricate finger-picking of Bert Jansch, the pastoral jazziness of John Martyn, the sympathetic piano trills of Nick Drake; Primrose Green’s sleeve seemingly nods to both Graham Nash’s Songs For Beginners and Van Morrison’s His Band and the Street Choir. Esteemed players from Chicago’s jazz and post-rock scenes provide backing on the album. Apparently, “primrose green” is a colloquial term for “a cocktail of whiskey and morning glory seeds that has a murky, dreamy, absinthian quality when imbibed, and a spirit-crushing aftereffect the morning after”. I find it wholly intoxicating.

Lower Dens – To Die In L.A. (2015)

Around the release of Lower Dens’ last album, Nootropics, lead singer Jana Hunter was referencing Kraftwerk’s Radioactivity, Fripp & Eno and Bowie’s production work for Iggy pop. These influences were detectable in electronic rock music that was admirably mean, moody and brainy, if often more interested in texture and atmosphere than tunes.

If the first single from their third full-length, Escape From Evil, is to be believed, Lower Dens have moved from the late 70s into the 80s in search of new inspiration and a different tone: “To Die In L.A.”, despite its title, is surprisingly light on its feet, with dancing synth lines and an ascending sing-along chorus (“Time will turn the tide!”). It's all-inclusive – as if they observed the commercial and critical love that greeted Future Islands’ open-hearted brand of art-pop and thought “we could do that”. It suits them.

Nev Cottee - If I Could Tell You (2015)

“If I Could Tell You”, with its mysterious extended intro, stopped me in my tracks when it came on the radio the other night. Nev Cottee has been affectionately described as the "Manc Lee Hazlewood" and there is undoubtedly something of the moustachioed master about his deep, warm voice. The backing (strummed acoustic guitar, hand drums, neighing horses, waves of massed vocals, piano and strings) and production here, however, more closely resemble that of a soft-rock re-edit such as you’d find on the ace AOR Disco blog site – with all the different elements stretched and spaced out, moving in and out of the mix. (Think also: Bill Callahan, if he ever swapped his wood cabin in the mountains for a trek through the desert with J Spaceman).

It makes sense that the 10-inch has just been released on Aficionado Recordings, who specialize in the kind of shimmering, Balearic sun-setters that waft out of tents in the early hours at Glastonbury. The lyrics, too, have a rueful, reflective, end-of-a-big-night feel about them: "Time will say nothing but 'I told you so'…we know the price that we’ll have to pay, but I want you more each and every day”.

Tropicalia – Ou Panis Et Circencis (1968)

 

Last month, I was down in Cottee's hometown of Manchester for the stag weekend of my future brother-in-law. It was an immensely enjoyable couple of days of bowling, bubble football, Phoenix Nights-style lounge acts, ludicrous waistcoats, and eating and drinking to excess. And while many of the guys were still in their beds recovering from the night before, I managed to fit in a Saturday morning scour of the record shops on Oldham Street. At the terrific Piccadilly Records, I picked up a reissue of Sleater Kinney’s Dig Me Out (an embarrassment of riches and hooks) and Tropicalia’s Ou Panis Et Circencis, a bonkers but brilliant collaborative album from 1968 with a cast-list that reads like a Who’s Who of Brazilian psychedelia: Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Tom Ze, Os Mutantes. Rolling Stone magazine in Brazil voted it No. 2 in their 100 Best Brazilian Albums of All-Time.

I bought an immaculate second-hand copy of Joan Baez’s Diamonds & Rust LP at Vinyl Revival and finally tracked down a copy of the album which pointed the way to the coked-up, world-humping supergroup that Fleetwood Mac would become: 1973’s Buckingham Nicks.

The Gospel Ayres – I Wanna Testify (1975) 

My find of the day, though, was a £3 bargain from Oxfam. The Gospel Ayres and their LP I Wanna Testify were new to me, but as soon as I saw the cover – name and title in bold coloured lettering; a mixed gender group with fantastically funky clothes and even funkier afros standing defiantly across a road (to the Promised Land?) – I knew I had to have it. Sometimes you just know a record is gonna sound great. And it does sound great: sure, certain tracks on the vinyl are pretty crackly, but, in some ways, you’d be disappointed if an old gospel record wasn't crackly - if it didn’t feel lived-in.

The Gospel Ayres' membership comprised United States Air Force personnel who were stationed at an RAF base in England in the mid-70s. Inspired by the secular success of gospel acts like the Edwin Hawkins Singers (of “Oh Happy Day” fame) and the Staple Singers, they built up a live following, performed on many TVs programmes and cut I Wanna Testify in 1975. The title track, currently the only one up on YouTube, features Sharon Hill on lead vocals and serves as a fine introduction to the album’s highly likeable gospel-soul-pop hybrid.

Monophonics – Strange Love (2015)

And now for some brand new soul… 2012’s In Your Brain by Monophonics is one of my favourite LPs of recent years. Its expert playing and production recall the soul and funk greats of the 60s and 70s, but it never feels like pastiche or like the band are going through the motions. It’s a fiery beast of a record. A diverse one, too - the James Brown-like yearning of tracks such as “Deception” rubbing up against phenomenal “I Wanna Take You Higher” highs like “All Together”.

The A-side of their new single, “Promises” shows that the ‘Phonics haven’t lost their touch – described by band members Kelly Finnigan and Ian McDonald as “a natural next step from our last record”, it “fits in the Psychedelic Soul pocket while also using elements of Reggae…kung-fu like horns, and a  shimmering 12-string acoustic guitar”. The B-side, “Strange Love”, meanwhile, feels like something new for Monophonics and might be even better – a take on the lavish Philly Soul productions of The Delfonics or The O’Jays, with a suitably melodramatic and romantic chorus: “my heart just won’t beat without your strange love”.

Sons Of Bill – Long Road To Canaan (2014)

Five-piece Sons Of Bill – hailing from Charlottesville, Virginia and including three brothers among their ranks – have been releasing records since 2006, but only very recently appeared on my radar when I noticed they had a song called “Lost In The Cosmos (Song for Chris Bell)”. Any act that makes reference to the Big Star legend and his I Am The Cosmos LP is gonna get my attention; that their latest and – by the looks of things – breakthrough album, Love And Logic, was produced by the former Uncle Tupelo and Wilco drummer Ken Coomer sealed the deal.

I’ve yet to hear the full album but “Long Road To Canaan”, featuring the dusty vocals of Leah Blevins, really moves me: a beautifully poised piece of alt-country, which resists the temptation to over-emote and over-complicate and comes up smelling of milk and honey.

Tame Impala – Expectation (2010)

New album imminent. Tickets for Barrowlands gig in September secured. “Expectation” most certainly in the air.