What's it all about?

Jockstrap- I Love You Jennifer B (2022) ***

Nominated by: Lew

Music club: MNAC

MNAC playlist addition:  What's It All About?

Whenever a jazz album rears its head in MNAC, various members preface remarks with a disclaimer around their inadequacies when approaching that genre. 

I feel exactly like that with Jockstrap's mix of electronica, dubstep, and noise.

Mainly because I don't listen to this type of music regularly enough so I have little frame of reference or critical faculties. In other words, I have no idea what's going on and I am in no way qualified to offer opinions about the quality of the music.

But, here goes anyway...

The first two tracks passed me by and then the fog started to clear a little with Greatest Hits and What's It All About? which featured strings and regular instruments. Huh??

It was back to experimental stuff after that little oasis of relative normality, until Glasgow. I'm sure there are good reasons for all the harp and electronic treatments, I just don't get it.

The vocals by Georgia Ellery (I looked Jockstrap up) are another source of critical frustration - I have no idea what's going on with her vocals.

So, it was largely an exercise in frustration for me Lew (I tried 50/50 a few times and just could nae do it). 

I'll stick to Greatest Hits, What's It All About?, Lancaster Court and Glasgow as being the ones I found more accessible and interesting. Those groovy strings and acoustic guitars hook me in!

What's with that cover btw? No effort expended on that, seemingly. Or again - am I missing something?

Thanks for broadening my musical palette, Lew.

Main man

T Rex - The Slider (1972) *****

Nominated by: GK

Music club: Wander to Wozza's

Playlist addition:  Ballrooms of Mars, Telegram Sam

I bought this one on release back in the early seventies. It was my first T Rex album. Up to that point, i.e. 1970 - 1971, I had been buying T Rex singles pretty regularly. Hot Love, Jeepster and Bang a Gong (Get It On) were early purchases when I was 12 - 13. Singles cost a little over a dollar so they were accessible, whereas albums took a bit of saving up for so I had to be picky. For that reason I didn't buy Electric Warrior until after The Slider.

Kevy's definition of a 5 star classic is that every track has to be brilliant, no exceptions. The Slider fits that criteria and then some.

It would be fair to say that I know this album inside out, having owned it for 50 years, and played it a lot - especially back in those early days of collecting when I only had twenty or so albums in the collection. Putting it on this week took me back in time and place - to my teenage bedroom at 18 Korma Ave.

The crisp production by Tony Visconti is particularly stunning. It still sounds like it was recorded yesterday!

The songs? Each one shines a different light on Bolan's weird world. His word play and love of language is there for the world to share. I don't think it's dated one jot either. Given it's deeply embedded in the glam genre of the early seventies - that's pretty re-marc-able (geddit?)

The two stunning hits lead off each side but it's the deeper cuts like Ballrooms Of Mars (the only song title that's not a two worder) that keep rewarding with every play - I mean 'John Lennon knows your name and I've seen his'. What does that even mean?? I've often wondered. Endless speculative fun.

It was downhill for T Rex after The Slider - the second best glam album of all time (Ziggy shades it for mine, but it's close). Thanks for allowing me another listen GK.

Leave the planet

For Tracy Hyde - Hotel Insomnia (1971) *****

Nominated by: Tom senior

Music club: Monday Night Album Club

Playlist addition:  Friends, The First Time (is the last time)

Sometimes it can be a bit of a struggle to listen to the album choice of the week three times. That's always my aim - to give an album a chance, three times seems fair.

No struggle this time out. I loved the sound of For Tracy Hyde from the off, and they just better and better with each listen.

Given they sing in their native Japanese I have no clue what they are on about but that's half the fun too - as with early REM, certain Rolling Stones songs and bands like Rammstein, I can make up my own meanings for songs.

Tom says they are a Japanese shoegaze band who sound like they came from the nineties and I can hear that but at times I hear all sorts of other influences and sounds. For instance, The La's, the Beach Boys via The High Llamas at times (Natalie for instance) and psychedelic experiments of various bands sprang to mind as I listened.

Great introduction Tom.

The way it works

Soaked Oats - Working Title (2022) ****

Nominated by: KS

Music club: Wander to Wozza's

Playlist addition:  Pink Beach

It was fun listening to this and spotting the influences. In the end I think I came up with Britpop (as influenced by Revolver era Beatles) mixed with Kraut-rock, New Order style synth pop, and Lou Reed - all put into a blender so that what emerges is something like a Dunedin version of  Tame Impala.

I liked a lot of things about the album - helps that I love to varying degrees all those individual influences, and only two tracks became ones I skipped on the third run through.

It's a sign of a good album that I changed my mind a number of times around which track to feature- The Way It Works, Something, Headline Opinion, Simple Pleasures and Day To Day (great closing track) were all in the running but I went with Pink Frost. Sorry - Pink Beach.

Call me crazy but apart from the title which alludes to it - I heard echoes of that kiwi classic in the music and that guitar.

Those two tracks I skipped? Third track, Divide Symbol, which kills the momentum and Daemon is a lengthy indulgence which tries to be deep and meaningful but is just tedious.

So, a four star triumph, even if I added the extra star to reward the Soaked Porridge blokes (I think they are all blokes) for being adventurous with that cocktail of influences and daring to venture into new sonic pastures.

Sundrop

Funkmammoth - Bird Watching (2016) **

Nominated by: Gee Kay

Music club: Wander to Wozza's

Playlist addition:  Laughter In The Rain

GK prefaced his selection by saying that he often listens to this one 'on a warm Sunday afternoon as I sit on the deck with a book and a cool beverage'. I can picture the scene! And what's more, I dare say this album makes more sense in that context.

Alas, I am listening to it in my music room on a wet day without the cool beverage.

So, it does not make too much sense to me, given my context.

I do have loads of birds for company at Maple Grove though. And I like birds.  

Funkmammoth is a guy, like DJ Shadow, who loves using samples of existing material that he can morph around and manipulate to make 'new' versions of much loved songs, albeit guilty pleasures by people like Neil Sedaka (Walking In The Rain), Gilbert O'Sullivan (Alone, Not Alone), and Michael Franks (It'll Be Okay) among others.

This is all well and good to a point. How original is it? Well that can go different ways on the continuum depending on your point of view and feelings about technology and the source material - from not very to fresh as a daisy. I tend towards the former with Mr Funkmammoth, but that's just me.

The annoying aspects for me were the moments that simulate a faulty CD sticking. Not sure how GK can read through those jolting moments - maybe that's when he takes a sip or five from his cool beverage. My brain is annoyed by that conceit, as well as the playing around with the speed of the vocals - Sundrop and Left Out To Dry made me grind my teeth!

I'm certainly not averse to this kind of idea. I own Entroducing, and albums by St Germain and The Amorphis Androgynous for instance, but their selection of source material is much more to my taste and comes without the juddering tape manipulations.

Best Funkmammoth moments for me - Bird Watching, Laughter In The Rain because I love that song and Mourning Dove which is based on the Minnie Rippington's Lovin' You and it's a cool tune.

I'm pleased to make his acquaintance but it didn't do much for me GK. I look forward to reading Kevy's five star review. He'll love it, I suspect.