Jinnistan wrote:

I finally got some Felt.  The post-punk Felt, not the '60s Felt I mistakenly picked up previously. 

The biggest obstacle is "Lawrence"'s vocals, wanna-be Lou Reed/Tom Verlaine.  So no doubt my favorite tracks are the instrumentals.  But to my surprise, my very favorite happened to be one from the guitarist's solo album.




 

While Lawrence is clearly the engine of the band, it's strange how he's also the weakest link and, from pretty much any account, a bit of a poseur. Deebnak is who makes those early records shine (and Lawerence clearly knows this, considering how heavily they rely on the instrumentals) and in the later years, its Martin Duffy's turn to define the sound of the band.

He's a decent enough lyricist though. And enough of a weirdo that I give him a pass.
 

Criminally overlooked Beatles song.
 

Jinnistan wrote:

It's honestly difficult to even consider any Beatle song as "overlooked" anymore. 

Oh, I know. And Getting Better is certainly in the middle of the pack of 'forgotten' Beatles songs, at worst. And it's on maybe their most famous album, so it isn't crying for attention or anything.

But...it's also on this most famous album of theirs which is sort of filled with mostly one neglected Beatles song after another (Fixing a Hole, Mr. Kite, Within You Without You, Lovely Rita, Good Morning Good Morning, Sgt. Pepper reprise). And so I think this was mostly about me going back to this record in a serious way for the first time in a very long time. Listening to it three times in one night, when I usually just listen to it once a year at most, and finding that even as overly familiar I am with the whole thing (having listened to it a non-stop loop for a year when I was about 13) how really undiscovered the 'greatest album of all time' kinda is. How, maybe after so many years of it being hyped to the point of ubiquitous irrelevance, it is now finally getting to the point where it is underrated. 

Mostly, I'm just happy to be back on board with this album after so many years of being very cold on it. To the point that I probably would have put Sgt. Pepper very near the bottom of all Beatles records. Which, honestly, I think a lot of people do at this point (and unfairly so)



 

I got the new Sean Lennon, which is being hyped as his turn toward prog-fusion, an instrumental album named Astrisms.  I was hopeful.  The album isn't bad, and it is refreshing to hear him branch out in these directions, but I still think his Miles-isms (added trumpet, Fender Rhoads, a track called "Thinking of M") are pretty superficial and pretty tame by comparison (an unfair comparison, but one he's begging), and maybe what's worse, the album never quite achieves transcendence.  Also, I might be sore because I've been recording under the name Water Stars for a number of years, and Sean starts off with a track called "Starwater", and it's also the worst song on the album.  But whatever.  Here's maybe the most successful track, imo.



 

I've been hesitant towards Andre's New Blue Sun, because, first off, he's been bullshitting for 20 years about doing an album like this without dropping anything.  On its face the project seems like an indulgence, being that he's a fairly amateur musician trying to do a spiritual jazz album, and with its pretentiously ponderous song titles.  Basically, he kinda seems like that guy who rolls up on the park's drum circle with a make-shift indigenous flute but everyone knows he's just the guy selling weed.  And this impression was reinforced when Andre went on Colbert's show to perform a brief version of one of the album's long tracks, and, again, Andre is not a fluid virtuoso on his expensive ethnic instrument.  So I was worried that this was going to amount to Coltrane cosplay.

That might actually be true to an extent, but overall, I was won over by the effort, which is sincere and satisfying, avoiding the new age vapidity that I feared, and more crucial than the lack of instrumental virtuosity is the more ambient mood and atmosphere.  Andre is certainly not an amateur producer, and he skillfully mixes spaceous texture and a sense of intimacy - his breathing and the creak of his seat are caught by the microphones.  I think he's still trying to charge, like, $80 for the vinyl, so I'll wait for a reasonable used copy, but I am starting to love it on relistens.