I don’t want to simplify a harrowing business. But when, in the middle of this concert with his Spatial AKA Orchestra, Jerry Dammers has a go at “Ghost Town”, the idea that this man would ever rejoin The Specials seems, frankly, insane.
With the news this morning that Neil Young has been confirmed to headline both Glastonbury and Hyde Park Hard Rock Calling in June, I’ve finally got my head around his new album, “Fork In The Road”, as promised.
One today that I think might interest a few of you. “Embrace” is the debut album by a Santa Cruz sextet called Sleepy Sun, who you could place as very much part of a new wave of Californian heavy psych. Since we were talking about the area’s titan trees on Friday, this quote from the band stood out: “It comes more from Northern California itself more than any scene or city. There is truly nowhere on Earth like our little corner of the country where the redwoods smother the ocean.”
After our blog feast the other week - thanks to When You Awake for getting in touch and for all your other recommendations, by the way - I figured I should mention a couple more.
I was reading my blog on Super Furry Animals’ “Hey Venus” the other day, and noticed a comment that the band were working on two other albums for imminent release, albums that’d put the tidy poppiness of “Hey Venus” into quite a different context. Like so many talked-up projects in that vein, nothing seemed to come of them. But the new Super Furry Animals album, “Dark Days/Light Years” feels very much like the yang to the yin of “Hey Venus”.
Quite busy here with, as you can see, a bunch of new stuff again this week: right now the new Jason Lytle album has just started up and doesn't appear to be a huge departure from what he was up to in Grandaddy.
Fairly quick one today, as I’m trying to write a longish review of the new Leonard Cohen album, “Live In London”, for the next issue of Uncut and have a couple of old Cohen live albums here on my desk that need re-examining – once I get past the formidable distraction of the new Super Furry Animals album (more of that later in the week), that is.
