August Playlist: Getting Good at Sleeping In

Autumn technically doesn't start for another few weeks, but screw it - it's September, this unpleasantly hot 'n' sticky summer is almsot over, and it's time to dig out your favourite jumper and fall in love with music again. This playlist, featuring ten of the songs I listened to most last month, is as good a place as any to start:

1. Red by Okkervil River

(from Don't Fall in Love with Everyone You See)

An exercise in elegant melancholy. The off-key organ solo is...somewhat less elegant, but as a whole, this track about an estranged mother and daughter thinking sadly of one another is very lovely indeed. Read my thoughts on its parent album here.

Review: Farmyard & Library by Pulco

"One of the things we tried to do with the show [Monty Python's Flying Circus] was to try and do something that was so unpredictable that it had no shape and you could never say what the kind of humour was."

- Terry Jones, speaking in 1998

Ash Cooke - better known as Pulco - is an exceptionally prolific artist. Sure, it's been a solid year and a half since his last full-length album, Innovations in the Trade, but judging by his Bandcamp page he's been far from silent during that period, releasing two new EPs, two radio sessions, and an eighteen-track compilation in that time

And now we have Farmyard & Library, a bumper-sized new album that finds the king of Welsh DIY music traversing still stranger sonic territories than those heard on Innovations in the Trade. Cooke makes music the way Monty Python made comedy: constantly striving to defy expectations and do the last thing you'd predict at every turn. As a result, Farmyard & Library is a surreal collage of song; Pulco's music has its foundations in lo-fi, guitar-based indie rock, but Cooke never allows himself to be bound by genre or style. Instead, he uses indie rock structure and instrumentation as a springboard for exploration, throwing in as many surprises as he can along the way.

The sudden shift from 4/4 to 3/4 time in Unleash the Hounds is actually one of the album's tamer left-turns.

Pulco on Bakesale (Guest Post)

On Monday, Paddy Johnston shared his thoughts on Death Cab for Cutie's Transatlanticism and explained why he had chosen to write a song about this record for Songs About Albums: Volume 1. Today, another SAAV1 contributor is here to give us their insight: please welcome to the stage Ash Cooke, also known as Pulco... 

I'm not altogether sure where and how I first discovered Sebadoh, but I guess that when you've loved a band for most of your adult life, you kind of feel like their music has been with you from birth anyway so it doesn’t really matter.

Most people generally experience a life-affirming sonic epiphany of some description as they begin to explore new music through their teenage years and beyond into their 20s, and I was no exception. I entered Falmouth art college in 1991, and the friends I made there opened my ears to all sorts of new bands, including Neil Young, Red House Painters, Pavement, Captain Beefheart, The Beach Boys, Soft Machine, and Ween, to name but a few. I quickly ditched the musical follies of my pre-teens and set off on a fresh musical journey that has enriched my life and generally kept me sane over the years ever since.

January Playlist: Let's Not Think About Tomorrow

So here's a new thing. From now on, my last blog of each month will take the form of a playlist, a recap of what I've been listening to (and indeed blogging about) each month. I'm afraid I can't be bothered to compile and share a proper Spotify playlist, but I do encourage all of you to do so for yourselves.

Anyhow, here are 10 of the songs I've been loving since New Year's...

1. Summer Here Kids - Grandaddy
(from Under the Western Freeway)
My first blog of 2015 was all about Grandaddy's debut album, and how it's arguably just as good (and as depressing) as its more popular sequel, The Sophtware Slump. This song in particular is a corker, and what better way to kick off a January playlist than with a song about summer?

Review: Innovation In The Trade by Pulco

Ash Cooke (a.k.a. Pulco) describes his new album, Innovation In The Trade, as an effort to "immerse myself in a growing love of all things Dada...reject reason...prize nonsense, irrationality and intuition."

If you're unfamiliar with Dadaism and its ideas, this song is as good an introduction as any.

All of which sounds like great fun, but it does make my task as a reviewer rather tricky - how can one find meaning in deliberate nonsense? Short of producing an equally surreal, equally Dadaist write-up, how might I shed light on an album that goes out of its way to avert all reason and logic?

A Rattle Through My Inbox

I'm rather proud to announce that, somewhere down the line, The Album Wall has become a blog worth tapping. People have started sending me music, presumably in the hope that I'll review it, or at least point a finger their way.

In fact, I've received enough stuff over the last couple of weeks to merit a blog post about it all. Let's take a whistle-stop tour through the contents of my inbox...

& by The Moth & The Flame

This is a six-track EP by a band from Utah, and judging by the promotional material, the big draw here is the fact that it was produced by Joey Waronker, a session musician who, among other things, played drums for R.E.M. on a couple of their post-Bill Berry albums. Aside from the stupid name that they've given this release (how do we pronounce it? 'Ampersand'? Just 'and'?), it's actually pretty cool; Monster has an appropriate menace to it, and Winsome sort of sounds like Reckoner by Nine Inch Nails at the start but ends up being more Radiohead-ish. Sorry makes me think of submarines for some reason.

For fans of: Hail to the Thief-era Radiohead (think Where I End and You Begin), or possibly The Antlers if The Antlers were funkier. These are purely sonic comparisons, though; The Moth & The Flame don't pack anywhere near the same emotional punch as either of those bands.

Straight From The Dick by Super Adventure Club

These guys are from Glasgow, and it's audible from the first couplet (side note: if I like a band more because the singer has a Scottish accent...does that make me a racist?) In all honesty, I was expecting to hear some nigh-unlistenable youth club punk rock lurch out of my speakers when I pressed play on this one, but you need only hear the start of track two, Fuck The Pop, to realise that Super Adventure Club are surprisingly accomplished musicians (surprising because, well, their album is called Straight From The Dick) The shouty moments are balanced with sweet fiddly bits and it all comes out quite nice. Even songs like Dog With Two Dicks have a sincere pop sensibility in there somewhere.

For fans of: Personally, I'd have said the first Young Knives album, but I played Straight From The Dick to a friend and he immediately declared that they reminded him of Dananananaykroyd. So yeah.

 

APES EP by Pulco

I was surprised to hear from Pulco, because he's an artist that I've actually heard of (I think he's sort of local, which may explain why). I like the conceit behind this one: a short collection of songs and poems, accompanied by little more than an acoustic guitar and a bit of background noise (although he's cheated a little bit, because pianos and basses do pop up from time to time). I'm not familiar with Pulco's usual output - I guess it's usually a bit more filled-out than the stuff on APES - but I can imagine that this would be a nice change of pace, a quiet diversion from the usual noise, a chance to sit back and reflect on things.

For fans of: It actually reminds me of Oasis a little bit, but it's better than this would suggest. Perhaps Neil Young would be a kinder comparison? Moments like Double Denim sound like they could be influenced by the softer moments on Everyone Knows This Is Nowhere.

Snarling by Givan Lötz

The email promised that this was a 'slowcore' album, and that led me to expect a handful of songs that sounded like Low or something. Instead, I got a 17-track goliath (plus three bonus tracks) that doesn't really do anything for me. This stuff is just kind of boring; it sounds a bit like a band called Les Jupes (well worth checking out), except with none of the tunes. Plenty of atmosphere, though; it's a very atmospheric album, I'll concede that much.

For fans of: Eh...Bon Iver, maybe?

Comfort Songs by Cloud

This one was sent to me by Audio Antihero, the label behind There Is Nothing More Frightening Than The Passing Of Time by The Superman Revenge Squad Band. Considering how much I slobbered over that album, I can hardly blame AA for wondering if I might like one of their other releases, and as it happens, I rather do. Comfort Songs isn't really anything like There Is Nothing..., but it's still great on its own terms. I did state that this would be a "whistle-stop" blog, so I'm not allowing myself a full, start-to-finish spin of this album just now, but what I have heard so far is enough that I'll almost certainly be back for the full show. It's alarming, really; I'll soon be at the point where Audio Antihero can just tell me to buy something and I will.

For fans of: So far? The Polyphonic Spree, although I think that this album might have other diversities to which I'm not yet privy.

It's nice that I'm now in a position to just sit back and wait for good music to pop into my inbox. The occasional duff'un is only to be expected, but at least three of these unsolicited emails have led to some music that I can really get behind. Keep it coming, y'all!

If you want to send me something, my email address is thealbumwall@outlook.com. I can't make any promises about including stuff in the blog, but I'll do my best to listen at the very least.