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I'm never sure if Christmas is the year's most unplugged day or a time to get lazily lost in digital places when "the most wonderful time of the year" becomes simply too much to bear (probably by early afternoon or so). In either case, if the 'blague is on your Christmas agenda, consider this tune your humble present. And let its groovy sunset vibes (or is that a marimba?) carry you gently to the threshold of 2014. This could be end-titles music to almost any cut of your cinematic year.
There's something gentlemanly about giving a longtime backup singer her moment in the sun. Say what you will about the power dynamics of patriarchal largess, but David Bowie did sidewoman Robin Clark a pretty nice solid when he put some celebrity muscle behind her effort as a frontwoman. As you might expect, the results are mixed, but then again her moment happened to fall in the mid-'80s. And it doesn't get much more 1985 than this. Not very healthy, but full of addictive additives.
I like to think of myself as a pretty eclectic listener. And yet I could never squeeze much enjoyment out of Abba. If there's a variety of cheese I can't gobble up, it's them. So imagine my happy surprise when I recently stumbled on singer Anni-Frid "Frida" Lyngstad's post-Abba solo album, produced by Phil Collins, and bearing nearly all of his early-'80s hallmarks that I enjoy entirely without reservation. The album is a mixed bag of pop approaches, most of which are weirdly flawed. But as batches of half-successes go, it's a pretty addictive listen. Especially this tasty niblet of regatta de blanc, with groovy guitar/organ call and response and Collins's very airdrum-worthy turn at the kit. God bless that man's left foot.
Sometimes it takes a dive into the rabbithole of the blogosphere to remind yourself how vast the musical universe is and how many shining treasures are buried in relative obscurity. Happening upon this band of funky jazzers trying their hand at the pop styles of their day has given me a most unexpected shot of happiness. So much that I can't help but share a pair of tunes from their All In Fun record of 1979, though you really don't need to be told the year to know when these snappy tunes were hatched.
Comes a time when you need to sweep the chimes across your earspace, sit back luxuriously in a bed of strings, let the bongos percolate, and let Mr. Upchurch's guitar be a feather all over your body, as your mind ascends into dream dimensions. Now, if only I could get my 3-week old into that groove, all would be perfect.
Hey Can fans — ever wonder what Damo Suzuki would've sounded like fronting an '80s pop band? It kinda happened. Here's proof.
That stare, once reserved for zoning out before TV screens, now annexes a feeling somewhere at the intersection of waiting and not waiting. When will the baby cries come? How hard will it press on my nerves? Should I move or not move a muscle? That effort of fortification, knowing that you have to pass through storms to get back to the blinding sun. That feeling, transmuted into a lovely pop song.
Being in the baby bubble means blurring the line between sleep and wakefulness, deliberate movements and falling back on muscle memory. Makes me appreciate the soft, surprisingly near-hallucinatory brushstrokes of Satie. Here's a classic one, nicely rendered by old progster Steve Hackett, and his brother John, fully in charge on flute.
Spent a good bit of last week on long daily journeys between home and the birth hospital. It made for an disorienting juxtaposition of environments, with the subway portions acting as a nice interstitial, offering generous portions of solitary book and headphone pleasures. Music-wise, I ended up curling into a couple unexpected synthy earworms, courtesy of a duo who have made their way into this space before. While having nothing to do with babies, births, or journeys full of anticipation, I suppose this will soon take its place in the audio portion of early baby memories, which is a bit of randomness I can't complain about.
I'm a week into fatherhood, and I only feel slightly less disembodied than I did the moment it became real (last Monday, for those keeping score at home). It's a dizzying transition, and I'm amazed at how naturally this whole new set of reflexes kicks in. Sometimes, it's so easy to just be guided by what we're evolved to do. Like dig for baby theme songs based simply on the kid's name! In my case, there's a rich heritage of tracks, some of which I've already covered, not knowing there'd be new meaning attached someday. Here's one that feels like it hits all the right notes. And it doesn't hurt that it feels like a kind of lullaby. I'm not sure why so many Emily songs are about sad, lonely, or lost girls, but those melancholy notes seem a lot more effervescent when accompanied by the sea breezes that Cale has going here.
