Many years ago - I reckon it must have been sometime in 2006 - I purchased Rock Action Presents Vol. 1, a compilation featuring artists signed to Mogwai's Rock Action label.
That CD introduced me to a lot of great bands, including Kling Klang, Part Chimp and Papa M. For some reason, though, I never bothered to investigate any of them any further - as much as I enjoyed listening to Radium and B1 and I of Mine, I must confess that my fondness for those tracks never motivated me to go out and buy the albums from whence they had been torn.
One of my favourite tracks from Rock Action Presents was Stargazer by a band called The Zephyrs. Stargazer was a gorgeous, blissed-out track about lying on the ground and watching the night sky; it's not exactly what you'd expect from a label called 'Rock Action', but a lot of the time, neither are Mogwai themselves. Listen to Stargazer below:
Nice, isn't it? A bit folksier and more earthy-sounding than Mogwai, but beautiful and ethereal nonetheless. Still, as much as I loved that song, I'm afraid The Zephyrs suffered exactly the same fate as Papa M and Part Chimp and the others: I played their contribution to Rock Action Presents again and again and again, but I never did get around to listening to any of their other stuff...
Happy New Year everyone! On Monday, I'll be looking ahead to some of the releases I'm excited to hear in 2016; for now, let's take a moment to look back on the year we've just left behind. Here's a quick countdown of The Album Wall's Most-Read Blog Posts of 2015...
10) 10 Questions for ESKA
A brief Q&A with Mercury-nominated musician Eska Mtungwazi.
9) Dimed Out
A preview of The Most Lamentable Tragedy by Titus Andronicus, written a couple of months before its release (spoiler: the album is every bit as excellent as I hoped it would be).
7) Day-Glo Dreams & The Art of Depressing Me
What makes a truly depressing album? In this blog, I suggest that Helen Love may well have a better idea than the moody likes of Thom Yorke et al.
6) Abstract Heart
My review of Zervas & Pepper's latest LP.
5) Revisiting Little Kix
Is Mansun's much-maligned third album really as bad as some fans would have you believe?
4) 10 Questions for Trembling Bells
The genre-juggling folk-rockers offer up some insight on their latest album, The Sovereign Self.
3) Under the Western Freeway
My first blog post of 2015 revisited Grandaddy's full-length debut and found it to be, well, something of a downer. Who would have thought?!
2) Mogwai Albums from Worst to Best
Mogwai celebrated their 20th anniversary this month - here's your ultimate guide to their 8 studio albums.
1) Björk Battles the Leakers
In my most-read post of 2015, I examined the fallout that ensued when Vulnicura, the new Björk album, was leaked online months in advance of its scheduled release date.
Hope you've all enjoyed reading The Album Wall over the past 12 months - I can't wait to hear what sort of sounds 2016 will serve up!
I've spent a lot of July looking backwards, musically speaking, and that's reflected in my playlist for this month. Only three of the ten songs below were released in 2015; the others all come from bygone years, whether it's 2014 (Living Solar Panels) or 1967 (Jackie).
So I invite you to twist your neck around, gaze into the past, and enjoy the songs that I've been stuffing into my ears this month...
1. Ist Das So? - Wir Sind Helden
(from Die Reklamation) Guten Tag is the Wir Sind Helden song that I blogged about earlier this month, but this fast 'n' furious opening track may be even better.
I finally got my hands on a copy of Mogwai's Rock Action the other week, which means that I now possess all eight of the band's studio albums. This, together with the recent announcement that Mogwai will be releasing a three-disc career retrospective later this year, seems like a good excuse for a look back at the band's oeuvre so far.
Here, then, are Mogwai's albums listed in order of merit, starting with my least favourite 'Gwai record and ending with my all-time #1. Please note that this list only includes Mogwai's proper studio albums; no compilations, soundtracks, EPs, EP+6s, live albums, or other miscellanea will be included.
#8 - The Hawk is Howling (2008)
My least favourite Mogwai album is still pretty darn good (I particularly love The Sun Smells Too Loud, and I Love You, I'm Going to Blow Up Your School), but in general, it's just not as memorable as their best work. Even Batcat - the album's leanest, meanest moment - isn't as hard-hitting as Glasgow Mega-Snake or Rano Pano or Hunted By a Freak (comparable but superior tracks from elsewhere in Mog discog).
I don't doubt that Hawk is some people's favourite; after all, it's the only one with no vocal parts whatsoever, which I suppose makes it the only 'pure' Mogwai album of the eight. For me, though, that purity makes The Hawk is Howling feel kind of impenetrable - it could do with a Cody or a Blues Hour just to cut some steps into the mountain, y'know?
Only now, as I revisit all the albums I bought this year, do I realise just how good 2014 has been. True, there have been quite a few albums that didn't live up to my expectations, but many others have met and exceeded those expectations quite wonderfully.
I'll be sharing my Top 10 Albums of 2014 this Friday; in the meantime, I'd like to mention a few marvellous albums that, while not quite good enough to crack my Top 10 list, are still more than worthy of your attention.
I'll start with Mogwai's Rave Tapes, one of the first albums I bought this year and a fine addition to Mogwai's uniformly fine back catalogue. It's not a career best - it's neither as instantly gratifying as Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will nor as rewarding as earlier efforts like Come On Die Young - but songs like Remurdered and Repelish have a dark, brooding sound that's very, very cool. Blues Houris my personal favourite; Mogwai don't often do lyrics, but when they do, the results are always awesome (see also: Cody, R U Still In 2 It).
If you're wondering why I didn't post any new blogs last week...well, firstly, thanks for noticing! It's because I've been enjoying an internet-free holiday in Portugal; I flew from Stansted to Porto on Monday and only came back yesterday.
And what did I do in between? Primavera Sound, baby! This was my second time at the festival's Portuguese edition (I first attended back in 2012, when The Flaming Lips and Rufus Wainwright played) and, happily, I've brought home plenty of blog material with which to end The Album Wall's short hiatus.
So how best to relay the joys of NOS Primavera Sound 2014 to you? I could simply write about all the great sets I saw - Spoon, John Grant, Neutral Milk Hotel - but it seems far more appropriate to let the albums tell the story. I bought four CDs while I was there (the festival site had a couple of music stands), so let's look at each one in turn...
N.B. Bear in mind that I've not had a chance to actually *listen* to any of these albums yet.
The Definitive Collection by Caetano Veloso
Caetano Veloso was right at the top of the bill for this festival - only the Pixies and The National were more prominently advertised on the posters. In spite of his apparent fame, though, I'd never heard of the man, and so it was with some curiosity that I went to watch his set on Thursday night.
A couple of weeks ago (i.e. around the end of April), I created a playlist containing my favourite songs of the year so far. I've decided to share it here - not only are the songs really good, I'm also really pleased with how it flows as a playlist.
See, this isn't a bumper-sized free-for-all like my summer playlist. That was one to shuffle and enjoy for an entire afternoon; this is a tight, ten-track affair that was carefully sequenced for the best possible listening experience.
So sit back and feast your ears on the 10 best songs of (the first four months of) 2014. I'll put the songs here without comment for now, and add some more details tomorrow.
(N.B. I would have embedded this as a Spotify playlist but My Name is Ian hasn't put his bloomin' album on Spotify. Thanks for that, Ian - now I have to embed ten things instead of one. Yeesh.)
1) Cult of Love by Dum Dum Girls (from Too True)
Too True isn't a particularly spectacular album, but it does boast the best opening track of the year so far. Cult of Love is a charging krautrock bull of a song, recalling the best parts of goth music among other things.
I've been pretty lazy with new releases thus far in 2014. In fact, of all the presumably brilliant albums to have seen release since New Year's Day, I've only bought three. They're all good albums, mind, even if none of them feel like 'Album of the Year' material; I just feel like I should be paying closer attention to the stuff in the window of Spillers.
Still, with three months of the year already down, I thought I'd better do some kind of Q1 review. Here's what I think of the three new albums I've bought this year...
Rave Tapes by Mogwai
It's a solid album, this, although I don't feel that it's quite up there with Mogwai's best. Quite a few tracks seem not to go anywhere (e.g. Simon Ferocious, whose most interesting feature is the completely unrelated synth fanfare that introduces it); that said, songs like Blues Hour and Remurdered more than make up for that issue. The former is a particular highlight - Mogwai don't often do songs with singing in them, but when they do materialise, they are always absolute treasures, and Blues Hour is no exception:
By the time you read this, I will be in Scotland. Sarah and I have taken the week off work and gone away to the land of her fathers, where thistles and white heather flourish on the banks of Irn-Bru rivers.
In celebration of this much-needed holiday, I thought I'd take a little meander through the Scottish portion of my The Album Wall. Bonnie Scotland has contributed a surprising amount of smashing music to my collection over the years, and it's high time I acknowledged that fact.
Mogwai are the obvious starting point. The first 'Gwai album I bought was Come On Die Young -you may remember that I blogged about it back in January - and since that happy little slab of sunshine first disappeared into my CD player, I've enjoyed a long and lusty affair with the band's music (I'm actually listening to Rave Tapes, their latest album, as I type this). Seeing them at Cardiff's Coal Exchange on the Mr. Beast tour was a truly monstrous, mammoth experience; thinking back, I'm kind of surprised that my ears ever stopped ringing after Glasgow Mega-Snake.
But Mogwai are only the tip of my Scotrock iceberg! Arab Strap are almost as well-represented on my CD rack, and that's a pretty inspiring achievement given that the first AS album I heard was purchased on an uninformed whim. I remember picking up The Last Romance from a record shop in Inverness (or possibly Aberdeen...this was quite a while ago) because I wanted to sample the local music and I though TLR's cover art looked pretty cool:
I was instantly a big fan of that album, especially the neckbreakers (Speed Date and If There's No Hope For Us), which still rank among my most-beloved Arab Strap tracks of all.
After The Last Romance - which, fittingly, turned out to be the final Arab Strap album - I leapt into the band's past, starting with the career-spanning compilation Ten Years of Tears and gradually picking up their studio albums when the chances presented themselves. Philophobia is my favourite now, with its slow-burning arrangements and Aidan Moffat's lyrics at their hilarious, brutally honest best.
Of course, Moffat continued to make music under his own name, and I've got two smashing post-Strap Aidan Moffat albums on the rack: Everything's Getting Older and How to Get to Heaven from Scotland. They're both real gems; I've already written a track-by-track dissertation on what EGO means to me, but How to Get to Heaven... is equally close to my heart, so be sure to check that out if you haven't before.
Looking somewhat further north, we come to Colin MacIntyre, a.k.a. Mull Historical Society. I first got into MHS because Loss, MacIntyre's first album, seemed to be on every Amazon list I encountered (Listmania was an important source of good albums in my early days - OK Computer, for example, was purchased off the back of many, many Listmania recommendations). I got it cheap off eBay, and I strongly suggest that you do the same; MacIntyre's peculiar brand of everything-but-the-kitchen-sink Hebridean pop is irresistible, and while the albums that followed are very good too, Loss remains his magnum opus.
Of course, if we're talking about my 'early days', we must touch upon Travis. I loved Flowers in the Window long before I knew what a Radiohead was, and their Singles compilation was one of the first things I thought of once I'd decided that, yes, buying CDs was something I did now.
Like The Great Beyond by R.E.M. and Sitting Down Here by Lene Marlin, Flowers in the Window was one of the songs that really caught my ear when it was in heavy rotation on Radio 2 back in my primary school years. Happily, Singles turned out to be one of those albums where you're familiar with more songs than you realised - neither Coming Around nor Why Does it Always Rain on Me? were new to me, and they sat quite nicely along cool new discoveries like Re-Offender (love the chorus), The Beautiful Occupation (love the verses), and Happy (love it all over).
Sticking with the theme of early discoveries, let's talk about Idlewild, baby. The Edinburgh outfit were the first band I ever saw live (they supported R.E.M. at the Millennium Stadium back in 2005), and while my mind wasn't exactly blown at the time - I was very, very far away from the stage, in my defence - I grew to love them soon enough. I got The Remote Part for Christmas that same year, and loved it from top to bottom, from the first snare drum crack of You Held the World in Your Arms to the last, stunning chords of epic closer In Remote Part/Scottish Fiction.
I eventually arrived at the noisier end of Idlewild's catalogue, where 100 Broken Windows and Hope is Important reside. It's hard to choose a favourite from Idlewild's first three albums, but I feel like 100 Broken Windows might edge it; it's the perfect combination of chaotic, punky Idlewild (as captured on Hope is Important) and big, skyscraping Idlewild (who came into their own on The Remote Part).
It's been a while since Idlewild put out an album, but the band's constituent members have done some good stuff too. Guitarist Rod Jones has a band called The Birthday Suit, who are pretty excellent:
Roddy Woomble has done some solo stuff, too. I don't actually have any of his albums - packed with folky loveliness though I'm sure they are - but I did see him play in Aberdeen shortly after the release of My Secret is My Silence in 2006. That gig was remarkable enough, with virtuoso backing musicians and cool, stripped-back versions of some Idlewild favourites; however, the support band made it even better.
I don't think Foxface are still a going concern, but that's certainly a shame if so. They had this sort of angry folk-rock thing going on - their album is called This is What Makes Us, and I'd definitely recommend it. You can get it on bandcamp - click here if you fancy.
The last band I'm going to talk about are a far more recent find. Last time Sarah and I were in Scotland, we went to a record shop in Glasgow called Love Music. I asked the guy what he recommended, and he introduced me to Woodenbox with a Fistful of Fivers. His description of them (I don't remember it word-for-word, but it involved the words 'gypsy' and 'trumpet' in fairly close quarters) was enough to sell it to me, and fortunately, my faith was rewarded:
As per usual, I can't find the best songs on YouTube (ugh, what a hipster I am), but take my word for it - Home and the Wildhunt is a great album that deserves your attention. The best ones, of course, are the ones that push the trumpet to the fore, like spaghetti western suicide song Hang the Noose and the strutting, self-assured Twisted Mile.
It seems a shame to stop this blog post now, with so many great Scottish acts left unmentioned. This has become quite a long one, though, and so the likes of Camera Obscura, Frightened Rabbit, Belle & Sebastian, The Murderburgers, The Aliens, Errors, Cosmic Rough Riders, My Latest Novel, Kid Canaveral, The Pictish Trail, Edwyn Collins, Franz Ferdinand and Alasdair Roberts will have to wait until the next time I go to Scotland. In the meantime, I'm off to see what's new at Love Music...
So here we are then - the first blog post of a brand new year. I thought about making a list of albums that I'm looking forward to in 2014, but I decided against that for two reasons:
It's too obvious.
I can only think of one album that I'm looking forward to.
Aside from may-not-actually-happen TBC releases from the likes of Titus Andronicus, The Hold Steady and Modest Mouse, Rave Tapes - the much-anticipated eighth Mogwai LP, out later this month - is the only 2014 album I'm really excited about right now. And since I can't write about Rave Tapes yet, I thought I'd do a blog about Come On Die Young instead.
CODY was the first Mogwai album I owned, and as is often the case, it's also my favourite Mogwai album. Their other CDs may boast hits like Hunted by a Freak and Mogwai Fear Satan, but for me, CODY is more rewarding as an album. The flow of songs is practically seamless, and the story that they tell feels like the perfect evocation of loneliness.
