Around the release of his last studio album, "Beware", Will Oldham embarked on a small project. According to the writer Kelefa Sanneh, in a New Yorker profile published in January 2009, Oldham intended, “To promote the album with singles, a photo shoot, and a handful of interviews, if only to prove that record promotion doesn’t really work, at least not for him.”
Apologies for the spotty service here recently: deadlines, deaths and a mildly debilitating virus have meant there hasn’t been much time to look after the blog in the past week or so.
Quite a good run for the Kranky label of late, with a bunch of albums I’ve enjoyed a lot from Ken Camden, Jonas Reinhardt and Disappears. For the past week or so, though, I’ve been really taken with “Endless Falls” by Loscil, discreetly asserting itself as maybe the pick of the bunch.
I’m sure most of you have heard the grim news about Mark Linkous in the past few days. I can’t really add much to the memorials that have accumulated about him and his music; on the odd occasion when I met him – all well over a decade ago now – he always came across as a gentle and reserved man, who told harrowing personal stories but at the same time didn’t seem to give that much away about what he was actually like. I have, though, dug out this Sparklehorse piece I wrote for NME in 1996. As is so often the way of these things, it’s hard not to see an awful poignancy in his last couple of quotes.
Thinking back to Brass Eye’s 2001 “paedophile special”, and in particular the furore it caused among certain sections of the media, it’s easy to see how misunderstood Chris Morris often is. Typically outraged, the Daily Mail described the episode as “a spoof documentary on paedophilia.” Which is missing the point. The programme was a savage attack on the media's own thoughtless, knee-jerk reaction to a serious issue. It clearly didn’t stop, though, large sections of the press demonstrating their own thoughtless, knee-jerk reaction to the show.
It seems likely, I’m afraid, that those same sections of the media will be up in arms about Four Lions, Morris’ directorial debut, a “jihadist comedy”, no less, focussing on four wannabe suicide bombers in Sheffield. Which is a pity, as Four Lions is an extremely good film; far more than **just** a comedy about suicide bombers.
First off today, a quick reminder that Sir Richard Bishop is gracing Club Uncut at the Borderline tonight (March 1), with really strong support from Alexander Tucker and C Joynes. Tickets still available from Seetickets.com or on the door. See you there, hopefully.
Strange beast, this, since I don’t have details about when and where this new Bill Callahan live album was recorded. Weirdly, the 11 tracks on “Rough Travel For A Rare Thing” don’t include anything from last year’s “Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle”, which would suggest that the performances date from between “Woke On A Whaleheart” (“Diamond Dancer” is here) and that exceptional album. But then again, Callahan has long proved he’s much too capricious a performer to make any such obvious assumptions.
