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

The Beach Boys – Sunflower / Surf’s Up (1970 / 1971) 

I've found myself thinking a lot about The Beach Boys in recent weeks. This, of course, isn't unusual when summer rolls around - nothing says sun and sea and good times like one of the Brothers Wilson's "pocket symphonies to God", even when you're listening to them on a packed train to work in drizzly, humid Glasgow (Pacific Ocean Blue by Dennis Wilson, the only actual surfer Boy in the band, is a huge favourite of mine, especially at this time of year). But they've been on my mind even more so because of the recently-released Brian Wilson biopic, Love & Mercy, which I went to see on Sunday and hugely enjoyed. Scenes depicting the Pet Sounds and “Good Vibrations” recording sessions, with Brian striving for perfection and trying to convey the arrangements inside his head to studio whiz-kids The Wrecking Crew, are a particular joy: so brilliantly observed, moving the drug problems, family disputes and mental illness out of the studio-space to focus wholly on his creative genius – I could have watched two hours of just that. The sections set in the 1980s with John Cussack as a washed-up, spaced-out Wilson are slightly less successful and interesting, but do set up some neat parallels and introduce the character of his second wife, Melinda, a loving and stabilising influence on his life to this day. As “Til I Die” plays at the film’s climax, all the voices in Wilson’s head are suddenly in harmony, and Dano and Cussack are brought together.

Still a teenager, I spent one of the best fivers I’ve ever spent on a two-albums-on-one-disc CD of The Beach Boys’ Sunflower and Surf’s Up (other notable twofers in my collection include Big Star’s #1 Record/Radio City, Smokey Robinson’s Make It Happen/Special Occasion and Doris Duke - I’m A Loser/A Legend In Her Own Time. What are some of your favourite twofers?).

Pet Sounds and Smile speak for themselves though have also had several books written about them, Today is recognised as the one where Brian grew as a writer and arranger and started writing about things other than sun, surfing and cars, while Surf’s Up is the hipster’s choice, the one name-checked by Super Furry Animals and Animal Collective, its “Feel Flows” played over the end credits of Almost Famous. [Surf’s Up really is an incredible record, full of beautiful (“Till I Die”, “Disney Girls”), funny (“Take A Load Off Your Feet”), creepy (“A Day In The Life of a Tree”) moments…it’s just a shame about “Student Demonstration Time”].

Sunflower remains their greatly underrated gem – a near faultless set with heavenly love letters (“All I Wanna Do”, “Our Sweet Love”), Euro-flavoured weepies (“Tears In The Morning”), groovy hand-clappers (“It’s About Time”), and two of Dennis’ absolute best (“Forever” and “Slip On Through”).

Upon returning from the screening of Love & Mercy, I looked it up, and, bizarrely, it was exactly ten years yesterday that I went to see Brian Wilson perform at the Clyde Auditorium: Saturday 16^th July 2005. This was the tour Brian did after the Smile one, and, though frail, he was clearly having fun (smiling, waving, performing sat-down dance routines at his keyboard), his fragile voice bolstered by a fantastic band with obvious adoration for him and the material. We didn't get an album played in full but we were treated to a quite extraordinary set list: “Fun, Fun, Fun”, “Don’t Worry Baby”, “I Get Around”, “Heroes & Villains”, “In My Room”, "Good Vibrations"....the hits just never stopped coming.

I don’t regret not buying one of the £50 velvet-bound programs at the merch stall, but I treasure my ticket stub and memories from that night fondly. 

The Every Brothers – Roots (1968)

 

Sticking with the brotherly theme, I’ve also been really digging The Everly Brothers’ Roots LP of late. I picked up The Golden Years Of The Everly Brothers when I was at uni and, after falling in love with those heart-hugging harmonies and deathless songs, I upgraded to the more comprehensive Walk On Back compilation. The passable Beat ‘n’ Soul and Rock ‘n’ Soul albums (another twofer purchase) did what they said on the tin, but I read that the one essential studio LP to get of theirs was Roots. When it saw a vinyl reissue as part of last year’s Record Store Day, I was finally able to check it out.

Put the needle on the record and a grainy, chirpy version of “Roll Along Jordan” starts up, then fades out almost as quickly – replaced by the Everlys’ dad, greeting us with “a great big howdy-do” and introducing us to the record and the family: “mom, Don, baby-boy Phil”. The first time I heard this, I instantly thought of the great Van Dyke Parks and the opening of Song Cycle, the solo album he made after the Beach Boy’s Smile project, for which he had penned wonderfully surreal lyrics full of twists and puns, was shelved (it opens mid-song, a snippet of a bluegrass track which also quickly fades out…“that’s a tape that we made, but I’m sad to say it never made the grade”, quips Van Dyke, in his wry, modern way). As well I might, it turned out: Roots and Song Cycle were both released in the same year (1968) and share a producer (Lenny Waronker) and playfulness of spirit. Both delve into the past (Roots features dialogue from a 1952 Family Everly radio show and, according to the sleeve, was “an attempt to explore the roots, explain the aesthetic, chart the progression, and capture the incomparable beauty of the Brothers Everly”) while adopting some of the musical styles and cutting-edge production techniques of the day.
 

Roots may be the less audacious record – choosing to simply focus on country music rather than every imaginable genre of American popular music made up to that point like Parks did – but, in its own way, it’s as exploratory and cosmic as Song Cycle or, indeed, The Notorious Byrd Brothers (another ’68 classic). The sudden shifts in tempo in “T For Texas”, the skipping in Pa Everly’s announcement at the end of Side A, the woozy, phasing effects used on their vocals – usually so sharp and bright – throughout: we’re a long way from “Wake Up, Little Susie” here! “Turn Around” and Randy Newman’s “Illinois” have a gorgeous, autumnal shimmer to them, while “Living Too Close to the Ground” and a reworked "I Wonder If I Care As Much" are just glorious.

Ecstatic Vision – Sonic Praise (2015)
 

Earlier in the year, I bemoaned the lack of ace new LOUD music – there’s been a surplus of lovely singer-songwriter records, but, other than Thee Oh See’s Mutilator Defeated At Last and Sheer Mag’s II EP, heavy stuff has felt a little thin on the ground. Imagine my delight, then, upon discovering Philadelphian three-piece Ecstatic Vision and their debut album Sonic Praise. Here, we have a band referencing Hawkwind, Sabbath and Amon Düül who have managed to capture their uninhibited wig-outs in a satisfyingly HEAVY fashion on record (something similar psych acts like Goat haven’t always been able to do, in my opinion). Lord knows what they sound like live! The album centrepiece is “Astral Plane”, a 12-minute, three-part Jurassic (Space)Park to get lost in and shook up by. 

Amy Winehouse – Love Is A Losing Game (2007)
 

Another film I went to see this week was Amy, Asif Kapadia’s beautifully-made but almost unbearably sad documentary about Amy Winehouse. It’s difficult to even raise a smile at the bits were a young Amy is being funny and charming (and there are many of these) because you know what’s coming; in hindsight, the danger signs are all there and all too real. I’ll maybe write on here about the film in greater detail once I’ve spent more time away from it and it feels less raw.

It can be easy to romanticise the dead: artists may seem more talented and important than they actually were once they’re no longer with us; slender bodies of work suddenly feel weightier, imbued with deathly significance. But, for me, the documentary leaves you in no doubt that Amy Winehouse was the real deal – a singer who lived for music and inhabited every song she sang. Within seconds of pretty much every performance, every hair on my arm was prickling – this rendition of “Love Is A Losing Game” at the Mercury Music Prize Ceremony in 2007 being particularly piercing and breath-taking.

(On a more flippant note, just think about the Mercury judges who, after witnessing this performance in the flesh, went backstage for their final deliberations and came to the conclusion that Myths of the Near Future by Klaxons was a more worthy winner of Album of The Year). 

Mutual Benefit - Love's Crushing Diamond (2014)

Love’s Crushing Diamond technically came out in 2013, but after becoming the first album released through Bandcamp to be awarded “Best New Music” by Pitchfork, it was picked up by Other Recording Company in the US and received a UK release in January 2014. (This preamble is me defending its inclusion in my Picks of 2014 list).

It’s rare for an album released early-doors to sustain itself throughout the year – Quarter One, as it's known in the industry, is often for records left over from the previous year or for those by fledgling acts that labels want to give a leg-up to before the Major Releases and Dead-Certs arrive and drown them out – but Mutual Benefit's debut proper really did for me, and it continues to in 2015. In some ways, it feels like a slight album (seven tracks, 32 minutes); the vinyl edition seemed to acknowledge this by including the earlier Cowboy’s Prayer EP as a bonus download. However, I’ve gone back to it time and again, finding more and more in its rich, enveloping sound. It's accompanied me on Spring train journeys down to Manchester, lazy Summer days in Queens Park, tipsy stumbles home at stupid o'clock. I've reached for it late at night when I've wanted one last hit of musical magic without noising up the neighbours.

Masterminded by singer-songwriter Justin Lee, the Mutual Benefit project consists of fluid band members, who come and go depending on where Lee happens to be based. The music is equally fluid: natural and unforced; meandering but never aimless. You’d call it “organic”, if that wasn’t such a cringey term. On intro track "Strong River" the instruments are waking and tuning up; jazzy drums tumble into life. Then "Golden Wake" kicks in, and it's as if the curtains have been thrown open and the morning sun's pouring in. "Sometimes my heart and brain conspire", Lee sings, as strings swell in the background, "to set everything on fire".

Piano, violins, hand drums and “inspirational electronics” flow in and out of the LP's mix, while gorgeous female backing vocals bring a warm soulfulness to many tracks. "Advanced Falconry" and "Strong Swimmer" are particularly special. Devotchka’s delightful contributions to the Little Miss Sunshine soundtrack come to mind, as does Panda Bear's wide-eyed Person Pitch, and the Sufjan Stevens of the early 2000s when he was still threatening to record a series of 50 albums, one for each American state.

An awed wonder in nature permeates the album, the image of the river used as a metaphor for time: "River doesn't know tomorrow, it rolls along with such simplicity...the river only knows to carry on". By “Strong Swimmer”, all twanging guitars, twinkling triangles and weeping violins, "it takes more than a strong swimmer to stay above water...that current took you away". The track ends - and the album goes full circle - by returning to the lyrics of "Strong River": "I clear my mind of joy and sorrow / River doesn't know tomorrow". I take this to mean that time doesn't make judgement calls - it just marches on. And so must we. Love's Crushing Diamond is a magnificent album about life, for all seasons.