Review of the Year

For the last six months I've been posting a weekly Facebook link to my highlights of the week in popular culture. Or maybe unpopular culture would be better? You know me.

On balance it is worth doing this as well though. I like trying to work out what was the best of the year, especially last year which didn't have many bests in it.

Music

My favourite individual tunes of 2020 are on this link to Spotify. It seems to have been a year when my spirits were raised by three chords and jangly guitars. Nowt wrong with that.

For album of the year I often struggle. New music is simply music you haven't heard before. As I do not listen to much radio I quite often 'discover' music that's been around a bit. Which meant it was great to find the Billy Franks' back catalogue and Man Alive by The 4 of Us (which I had on cassette in the car in the 1990s) make their way onto Spotify. But that said I enjoyed:

EOB - Earth

Foals - Collected Remixes

HAIM - Women in Music Pt. III 

Khruangbin - Mordecai

Surprise Chef - All News is Good News

Westerman - Your Hero is Not Dead

Zapatilla - Zapatilla

Reading

I read more books in 2020 than any year since records began (1988). But how many were written in 2020? Not many. Plaudits to:

Fiction

Andrew Hunter Murray - The Last Day

Daisy Johnson - Sisters

Catherine Lacey - Pew

Fact

Adam Rutherford - How to Argue with a Racist

Screen

In TV/Film I caught up with many box-sets during lock-down using a Prime subscription and latterly Netflix. Like many others our favourite film of the year was Armando Iannucci's spirit-lifting The Personal History of David Copperfield.

But I found the year much-improved by Better Call Saul, Peaky Blinders, Bones (plots become increasingly improbable by Season 5), The Good Fight and Brokenwood.

Food

Wapping Wharf

I only had three or four meals out all year but all were nice. My usual haunt of WB at Wapping Wharf is always good but Gambas Tapas just along from there is also excellent.

I missed my couple of times a year at the Pony and Trap at Chew but found the yurt version at Breaking Bread on the Downs very acceptable for a wedding anniversary. In April the Pony and Trap at Chew is changing its focus to a foraging and training centre with meals for volunteers on the estate. But they are opening a restaurant in Bedminster. Hooray.

Clifton Downs Yurts

On a north Wales holiday I discovered that Cadwaladers ice-cream in Criccieth was as good as ever. Also that Grasmere Gingerbread can be mail-ordered.

Here's to better things to review away from home in 2021.

Billy Franks - an Appreciation

Whilst it seems disgracefully tardy to write an obituary four years after someone's death this will be as much about me as about the deceased. Also, which is a tough thing to admit about someone I admired so much, I didn't know Billy had died until last week.

Back to the beginning of the reason for writing this, then back to the beginning of the story.

On Easter Day, often a day when I get out of bed and step onto a conveyor belt of ministry delivery, I was in lock-down. The coronavirus COVID19 had caused the country to isolate its citizens and ban public meetings, including church services. I had put all necessary services online the previous day and I had nothing to do. From somewhere this quote arrived:

'What I would give
For what it could be
Touching or touched by
A far more tender glory'

As quotes do it resonated with me more than any words I could conjure myself. Taken from the Faith Brothers song 'That's just the way that it is with me' the lyrics reveal a person comfortable in their own presence:

'How in sweet solitude I listen to my soul singing...'

The song is on their 1987 second album 'A Human Sound'.

I put it on Facebook, adding Billy Frank's name. Later that morning, but still early, a clergy friend asked if she could use the quote in a sermon and might I attribute it, which I did.

So that whole process got me reminiscing a bit and I listened to some Faith Brothers music on my morning walk. What a joy it was. Returning home I realised that I had never utilised the full force of Google on the Faith Brothers. So I did. And discovered that Billy had been dead, since 2016. His death disappeared in a year that claimed so many big names. I also discovered his solo work, previously missed by me in Q reviews, newspaper reviews, radio airplays or simply gossip. And I also began to feel that Billy had sound-tracked my ministry from the sidelines. I have many little memories of the last thirty five years attached to Faith Brothers songs.

Right. Back to the beginning of the beginning, which is Nottingham, Rock City October 21st 1985 and, ordained a year, myself and a mate, curate in the next door parish, have a night off to see REM. Two supports are described on Wikipedia for that night but either Pleasure Device were completely forgettable or we arrived too late. But we did see the Faith Brothers.

I don't think I'm reading too much back into the story; I wouldn't have gone out and bought their first album if I wasn't impressed. So my memory is of a crisp sound, a very small drum kit making a remarkable noise, a tight band and, unusually in 1980s rock, a brass section of trumpet and sax. Also the songs. The songs. Short. Crafted. Some enigmatic aspects to the lyrics I could discern. Whether I discerned or not they started that tour with Eventide, the first track on their first album of the same name. It is a quiet, acoustic ballad on the album; a joyful and gloriously uptempo song live:

'History handed down like big brother's clothes
Madmen and giant's cast-offs
Stretched and frayed or tailor-made?'

There is a gig from BBC In Concert 1985 on Spotify which gives a flavour of what I would have experienced that night.

REM were great later, but that support band. I needed to know more. And the only way to have done that, I conclude, would have been to go to a big record shop and browse. So that I must have done.

At home I played that record a lot and also bought A Human Sound, their second album, which came out in 1987. It included a critique of traditional church:

'In an old place for the first time
I heard the fed talk about hunger
Telling tales of loaves and fishes
I heard the wealthy read the book of common prayer.'
(You Can't Go Home Again)

In a period where Conservative politics had no real opposition Billy didn't so much shout from the left as stick up for the voiceless whoever they were.

I inflicted both those two albums on a church youth group around that time and, when I found out that the band were supporting Julian Cope at Rock City, took one of them with me to see them. Remember when that was not thought to be a stupid thing to do? Anyway that young member is now the Archbishop's advisor on Evangelism so hey.

Back at Rock City the Faith Brothers gave me one of those rare occasions where the support blew away the headline. One of only two gigs where the support act has got an encore. The other, should you care, was when I saw Genesis supporting Caravan in 1972.

And now we have an intermission. No more albums but I played those two regularly. In the days when you had to record your albums onto tape to play them in the car I had A Human Sound on one side of a C90 and a metal band called FM on the other. Junior Tilley, borrowing the tape aged about 8, managed to press 'record' in the middle of the album when listening to it in his bedroom and never owned up until we all heard the evidence on a long car journey.

In the late 1980s I read Mark Ashton's' Christian Youth Work' a seminal book at the time. I wrote in the margin, next to a section where he had been lamenting the lack of protest songs (recalling the days of Bob Dylan and his own youth) and I noted that the Faith Brothers did so. There was no lack of protest songs; they simply didn't get played.

The albums survived a move to the north-east from Nottingham and came back to Leamington Spa, still played regularly enough, but on arrival in Nailsea the record deck broke and we didn't replace it until my darling family bought me a new one for a significant birthday. So I probably went six or seven years without. But of course, by 2012 there was Spotify and so the vinyl could be kept but spared. There's something about holding a vinyl sleeve in your hands though. It means something.

Somewhere in the midst of this a popular author I enjoy, Christopher Brookmyre dedicated a new novel to Billy Franks. Since Brookmyre is a bit lefty in his politics it had to be my hero. I love those moments when one of your heroes declares another of your heroes their hero too.

And so to last Easter Sunday, when I Googled and Spotified Billy Franks and found he had died. RIP someone I feel close to and would have loved to have been friends with. Your words will keep me thinking about you until the day I die too.

I listened to your songs again and anew and for a moment the tears gushed. You once said 'Love is a welcome pain'. Trying to translate I hear the tales of a Catholic boy:

'As I refuse to choose between solid and heavenly thrones .. why should I go to mass?'
(Mass)

(Was there more to that Faith Brothers name then I imagined?)

...an introvert, a wordsmith, possibly a sufferer of early bereavement, coming to terms with his own personality, perhaps resigning himself to a lack of recognition which many of us felt he deserved. And everyone very quiet about the cause of his sudden death.

On YouTube is a documentary film about Billy's friends trying to persuade famous artists to record a tribute to an unknown songwriter. The film cuts back, again and again, to Billy speaking between songs at an intimate pub gig. Towards the end he confesses that we are listening to a man whose dreams didn't work out. The film is called Tribute This. One of the Executive producers is Chris Brookmyre.

But my current treat is the discovery of several solo albums and an extra live show on Spotify. I haven't listened to them all yet. Truth be told I can't bear the thought of having finished Billy's back catalogue.

My tears are for a life taken early, a world trapped in lock-down and the vaguest hint of a feeling that my dreams didn't all work out either. I'm seeking an inner willingness to own that and be all right with it.

'The true are free, the corrupt are lonely
That's my belief
Left to scavenge for scraps of beauty in this junkyard'
(Whistling in the Dark)

Yeah. Me too. Thanks Billy Franks and the Faith Brothers. I'll keep you close. He wrote a book. I've ordered it.

Ten Influential Albums

I have just finished one of those Facebook challenges. This one involved posting pictures of the covers of ten albums, one a day, that have influenced my taste in music. It was a tough ask. One of the rules was not to explain, so they stand alone on Facebook, but I thought there night be some fun in showing my working. This particularly because some of my favourite albums ever are not there.

No space for my first love Ten Years After. No Genesis album. No punk. Talking Heads didn't make the cut. No jazz. Burial missing. No Zappa. Strewth, No Zappa. How that happen? Only a vague hint at the 1970s and a nod at electro-pop from the early 80s. Can't believe there's no Tears for Fears. Four of my favourite albums of all time aren't there. No Sunshine. No Butts Band. No Ace. No Dan Reed Network. I forgot John Martyn. No way. And all very local. I must disappoint you, world music.

And, truth be told, the list might have been very different on another day. Not sitting in depressed lock-down in a plague-world drifting gently into mental illness I might have been pressing different buttons on the juke-box.

I think my choices represent that we don't learn in a smooth curve but our lives have some eureka moments. The 1990s were highly influential for me, possibly because, after losing my way a bit, fine music began seeping under my sons' bedroom doors and I found myself asking 'What's that?' Thanks Ben for Zero 7, Roots Manuva and Iron and Wine. Thanks Jon for the many long car journeys to Aberystwyth and back where, strangely, taking it in turns to control the CD player, you introduced me to some great music from the 70s I had missed and I played you new stuff. And both of you for your own music. Umarga and Black Maple have me in proud Dad mode. They made me try a bit harder.

Also because from 1992-2002 I had a national job with many long hours on the road and John Peel, then Mark Radcliffe introduced me to a range of stuff I would never have heard otherwise. Step forward Dusted, Witness, Faithless, Lexis and the 22/20s.

More recent discoveries, good as Jaga Jazzist, Jazz Liberatorz, Bonobo, Fourtet, Foals, Ghostpoet, Undergrunnen and The Vryll Society are, might have to hang around a little longer before they can be deemed influential. Face it, there are few new genres; most good music is assembled from bits of other music these days. Noel Gallagher, I'm looking at you as the genius of flatpack pop. I'm waiting for the next bombshell. And, of course, (metaphor remix warning) eventually a bombshell will come along that fails to blow my mind.

So to my choices:

Traffic

The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys

1971

Set the scenes for my enjoyment of the extended instrumental section. Steve Winwood's piano style I have spent 50 years trying to emulate. Recently someone, who didn't know this, told me that I had succeeded. I have never been so happy.

Faith Brothers

Eventide

1985

Simple song-writing and enigmatically poignant lyrics with a bit of political protest chucked in. And brass. I like brass, done this well.

Talk Talk

Spirit of Eden

1988

This is why there is no jazz and no electro-pop in my choice. Because in one staggeringly inventive album Mark Hollis (RIP) and his gang sweep up all influences from the previous and next 20 years. And I prefer minors to majors. Always will.

Massive Attack

Blue Lines

1991

Heard Safe from Harm and knew this was different. This was not the usual Radio 1 beat. I now know I like trippy stuff. Maybe I should have done some drugs in my teens. Then again, this was worth waiting for.

Definition of Sound

Love and Life: A Journey with the Chameleons

1991

The album that made me realise that people talking instead of singing wasn't cheating. The moment the penny dropped.

Roni Size Reprasent

New Forms

1997

Up until that point, to re-imagine a joke from the Blues Brothers, my observation about my older son's DJ career was that he offered both sorts of music - drum and bass. Then I heard this and further pennies tumbled.

Alabama 3

Exile on Coldharbour Lane

1997

Can't for the life of me recall how I found this album. Woke up this Morning didn't become the theme tune to The Sopranos for a few more years. I didn't see them on Later with Jools Holland until La Peste (second album). But influential because I like electro, I like country and I like blues but I didn't know you could get all three in one packet. There's at least eight of them and they're not from Alabama. RIP D Wayne Loved your work.

Radiohead

OK Computer

1997

I had The Bends. The reviews captured me. It was the moments of Thom Yorke's soulful wailing that were best though. Street Spirit (Fade Out) is a remarkable piece of work. Then they did Jools and performed Paranoid Android. They linked prog rock to soul. Not my favourite track but influential in that this band, ever since, have moved on album by album in imagination, reach, competence and vision. The long-lived rock band that keeps learning together. So rare.

Hayes and Cahill

The Lonesome Touch

1997

Another Later moment. I loved that Jools got us to listen to things we might not otherwise hear. This woke me up to the distinctions and rules of jigs and reels. Now I like this sort of thing. Fifteen years after this they played Holy Trinity Church, Nailsea hosted by Nailsea Folk Club. I met them. Delightful guys.

Everything but the Girl

Temperamental

1999

Me and TCMT have little cross-over musical taste these days. I fear she tolerates my loves more than enjoys them. She has told me that if she is ever in the house when a Battles album is playing she will leave me. This band is a genuine shared love and taught us both that great songs can be remixed and reconceived many times to deliver more, not less, enjoyment.

I hope that helps. I have illustrated he ones that nearly made it.

Laibach - The Sound of Music

This is not a review of an album I expect any of you to like. But I would encourage you to sample a little, for it contains an important lesson.

Our story begins in the beautiful country of North Korea where western culture is frowned upon and only certain set texts are allowed to be used by the nation's musicians. One such text is The Sound of Music.

This is a lesson about creativity. If you tell a musician that they must only use the lyrics of the Sound of Music but are othewise unclear as to the limitations you are imposing, something like Laibach's version is almost inevitable. Click on the link to open in Spotify.

When these guys sing 'Climb every mountain...' it holds such a weight of threat that you seriously consider leaving the house at once. This is The Sound of Music that nobody will ever singalong to and many listeners will want to employ professional protection by the time track 3 is reached. How do you solve a problem like Maria? Laibach know people. I'd call them. They may play tunes from Carousel to drown the screams. So long. Farewell.

They have, I'd bet, managed to smuggle some Velvet Undrground tunes into their country. They have a Nick Cave album. Laurie Anderson would be proud.

A delight in so many ways.

Eurovision

In case there are those who do not follow my live tweets/FB on Eurovision here is the feed from last night. Thanks to those who joined in.

Happy to be offering the usual service of watching #Eurovision2017 so you don't have to. Expect sincerity without diplomacy.




'Expect repetitive flashing images'; music not dissimilar #Eurovision2017




Did everyone get the 'wear black or white' memo? Who was meant to tell Spain? #Eurovision2017




Comedy timing hard in a second language - don't think timing is all our three hosts need though #Eurovision2017




Let's start out with depress mode #Israel feels alive? a liar? a lot? #Eurovision2017




'No one has ever won from position number 2.' Song and dress mainly see-through plus wind, smoke and fiddler #Poland #Eurovision2017




Predicted text prefers walrus to #Belarus hey hey hi i i o o #Eurovision2017




Running on air you can push me down but I'll just get up again. How that work? #Austria #Eurovision2017




#Armenia #Eurovision2017 Already forgotten it. Will probably win.




And welcome the key change please. Big voices. #Netherlands #Eurovision2017




Dresses which got bigger. There's a novelty. Mamma mamma don't bistro now #Moldova #Eurovision2017




Lone dancer, lone fiddler, flames, rap in native tongue and Gareth Bale's missing topknot #Hungary #Eurovision2017




I'm sure those backdrop images were on my doctor's wall yesterday. One or two words in Italian. Dreadful. #Italy #Eurovision2017



Never ever wear a frock in a waterfall. You won't have to sing 'You know where I am' #Denmark #Eurovision2017




Please return my jacket to 1986 and the song to My Fair Lady #Portugal #Eurovision2017




A ladder, a chalkboard and a song about a skeleton. Man with animal head at top of ladder. What could go wrong? #Azerbaijan #Eurovision2017




A man of many parts. None of them small. #Croatia #Eurovision2017




Who knew eyebrow paint was a thing? Everyone has it. But only #Australia have clown shoes and a love that don't come cheap #Eurovision2017




That's the worst response to 'Guys, give yourselves a cheer' I have ever heard #Eurovision2017




The Eurobynumbers department decrees an annual 'throw everything at it' tune. #Greece #Eurovision2017




Never heard it before and got the drum-join bang on. Clap your hands and do it for your lover. #Spain #Eurovision2017




When changing key always agree the key to change to #Eurovision2017




#Norway #Eurovision2017 When it's all or nuffin, put your nerves in the coffin. Cool.




Here's the Brexit test. OK but Midge Ure did it better #UK #Eurovision2017




Let me be your gravity. Science lesson needed. Song not without merit. #Cyprus #Eurovision2017




Rap and yodel. No. Come back. Come back. #Romania #Eurovision2017




The four favourite Euro chords - rhythm Every Breath You Take by The Police. Stands a chance. #Germany #Eurovision2017




Band piercing a plenty. Song less so. Heavy man. #Ukraine #Eurovision2017




Quite under-stated. Nice. Bit like a theme tune to scandinoir #Belgium #Eurovision2017




Is it OK to say frickin? #Eurovision2017




Frickin slick or is it freakin? Tune Beverley Hills Flop #Sweden #Eurovision2017




Quite an accomplished performance for 17. Stands a chance. #Bulgaria #Eurovision2017




Changed direction faster than a Compass in a magnet factory. Legs should win some votes. #France #Eurovision2017




Well done Ukraine for hammering through 26 songs in two hours #Eurovision2017




We're still loved by Iceland then. Trying to hold off the cod war #Eurovision2017




I think a new tension-cranking device has been introduced #Eurovision2017

To finish, I was delighted to spot that Bulgaria stood a chance. They came second. Had no idea that Portugal would walk it. Enjoyed the new voting system so you genuinely don't know who will be winning until right near the end.

2016 Review of the Year

So here we go with a look back at 2016. And it will involve a bit of  'Apart from that Mrs Lincoln what did you think of the play?' Elephants in the room, even if they stand quietly, tend to leave dents in the floorboards.

Album of the year? Well I remain of the view that in a year when Radiohead put out a new album everyone else should fight over second place. This is indeed the case. A Moon Shaped Pool is an astounding, magical, soulful, dramatic, creative and haunting piece of work. Best of the rest was Steve Mason's Meet the Humans.

Film of the year. Didn't spend as much time at the cinema as I would have liked which meant that much watching was last year's. Rogue One was excellent fun. Jack Reacher ignored the advice of the title Never Go Back and went back. People got hurt. I really enjoyed The Accountant though. I like maths, dialogue, thrills and espionage. All boxes ticked.

As previously noted I also have trouble reading books in the year of publication. So nothing from me about works that were actually published in 2016. My two favourite books of the year were as pictured.

Paul Mason was the only person I read who wrote a realistic guide to why Brexit might be a good idea - he then advised against it because the timing was wrong. In Post-Capitalism, he asserts that the era of the technological revolution has gone on too long and soon not everyone will need to work. But we will need to contribute and the world needs to work out how to pay us. I reviewed it here.

Everything Magnus Mills writes leaves me convinced I am being taken by the hand and led slowly somewhere very profound. At the end I wonder if I have read something deep, imaginative or a simple children's story. Any piece of writing that lets the reader decide what it was all about without comment - you read or hear few interviews with Mills - is a job well done. Reviewed here.

Eating out? It was the year we discovered Maitreya Social in Easton. As a seasonal, organic, local-produce, vegetarian restaurant in an ethnically diverse part of Bristol you might want to beware of catching right-onness. But the tastes are amazing. And if you don't contract a hipster beard there you certainly will do at WB at Wapping Wharf. Fish, chips and craft ale. I might have been its greatest fan/evangelist this year. By Saturday I will have taken almost everyone I like, who has visited the south-west with a mealtime to spare, there. (Takes quick break to issue another invitation.) Their Smokin' Barrels was my beer of the year.

Some honourable mentions. @porrdidgebrain entertained me on Twitter on a daily basis (sometimes hourly). Eddie Mair on Radio Four's PM made broadcasting seem an absolute breeze. As Did Danny Baker, both on Radio Five of a Saturday morning and as @prodnose on Twitter. Nacer Chadli restored my belief that there are players who will make a lung-busting run for the cause of West Brom (See his second goal in the 4-2 defeat of West Ham.)

See you at the end of 2017.

Screws

This is a lovely album from 2012. I review it for the benefit of anyone who seeks instrumental ambient music to play either as background or to read/speak over.

Nils Frahm suffered a broken thumb - bad news for a professional pianist.

Told, on medical orders, to leave his keyboard alone for a while he failed to resist that temptation. By the time the cast was cast off he had recorded the nine simple piano pieces you find on this album - a birthday present to me from Junior.

On the sleeve notes Frahm says, 'They have helped me feel less annoyed about my accident and reminded me that I can only achieve something good when I make the most of what I've got.'

As I re-organise a bit of this week's life due to the flare-up of my back condition, that was a useful little mantra.

2015 Prizes

It is all too hard not being sent review copies of stuff or having the time and space to keep up with popular culture. It means that when I look back to decide what was the best of last year I usually discover that I spent a lot of the time catching up with previous years.

I enjoyed reading The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth but it was first published in 2013. Sub-titled 'How to Turn the Perfect English Phrase' it was a list, chapter by chapter, of rhetorical devices and how to employ them properly.

Matthew Engel's Engel's England is fun and informative as it describes England county by county; as is David Byrne's How Music Works - did you know orchestras developed so that the music's volume drowned the crowd? Neither was published in 2015 and both remain unfinished.

My favourite non-fiction work of 2015 was Jonathan Sacks' Not in God's Name which I reviewed here. The former Chief Rabbi examines the common heritage of Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

Dave Eggers' novel The Circle imagined life when an all-seeing internet giant took over everyone's provision and promoted complete transparency. Brilliant, but that too was published in 2013.

Tom Wolfe's Back to Blood was an epic tome which caused me the usual problems of a 700 page hardback in bed last thing at night. But I loved it. No-one writes in such bold as he. No-one makes a character crash and burn like he. No-one does redemption quite as he does. 2012 though. Wish I could keep up.

Martin Amis' Lionel Asbo was a good read. 2012. I only finished two novels actually published in 2015 and the better of the two was Chris Brookmyre's dark crime caper Dead Girl Walking. Brookmyre writes black comedies with witty observation about the state of the world as Christopher and more conventional crime stuff as Chris. This one was about a missing pop star and included some well-observed back-stage stuff about tours and inter-band jealousies.

Found some good albums this year including Blur's The Magic Whip, Calexico's Edge of the Sun and Peace's Happy People. Hate giving the award to the same band two years running so although Jaga Jazzist's Starfire deserves to win I think Everything Everything's Get to Heaven just shades it.

Star Wars V11 was a good romp and The Theory of Everything poignant. Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation passed the time, as did Spectre but The Imitation Game was my film of the year.

Talk Talk - Spirit of Eden

Somewhat renowned for the very late review I want to talk about an album from 1988. Why? Because I only heard it for the first time last Friday. Forgive me.

In the early eighties Talk Talk were, for me, a perfectly adequate synth-pop band. A slightly unusual vocal style gave them an edge over all the other Yamaha DX7 bands out there. The Party's Over, the debut album, has some fine singles on it but I didn't feel compelled to become a long-term fan or purchase any further works.

Recently Spirit of Eden has been cropping up on many music magazine lists of essential albums. I usually know the albums in such lists well and if I don't own them it is because, despite their essentialness, I don't like them. Spirit of Eden, I realised, I had never heard.

It is wonderful. Why is it essential?

Let's imagine that you are not a music lover and twice in your life someone has given you an album, 'Because you must have something to play at parties.' They have tried to please you but to keep it mainstream.

Your collection consists of Miles Davis' jazz classic Kind of Blue and Elbow's The Seldom Seen Kid. The former because that is what everyone owns if they think they ought to like at least something and the second because you accidentally watched the performance footage of One Day Like This at Glastonbury a year or two back and liked it. I believe this is a credible scenario.

You play the albums from time to time, wondering how music got from there to here, from 1959 - 2008. Although not enough to increase your collection.

Spirit of Eden fits in the gap. You can hear jazz chord progressions and shades of volume unusual in a 'rock' album that hark back to Davis. There are times of almost completely silence. But there is a strength of song-writing, a theme to the whole album and an up-to-dateness that, for 1988, was remarkable. Twenty years ahead of its time.

It would have been difficult to perform publicly. Rock venues are notorious for the volume of the audience. Rock audiences do not behave well in quiet passages. An Elbow gig I once saw suffered badly with this.

Spirit of Eden is haunting, beautiful, melodic, structured and its brief lyrical content has a poetic quality rarely heard in pop. Nothing lengthy but every word made to count:

'A gilded wreath on reason
The flower crushed conceives
A child of fragrance
so much clearer
In legacy.'
(Eden)

My next twenty years will be much improved by its presence.

The Brits

The DVD remote had broken. That was the only reason folks. Yes I know it was a lifetime vow and I am sorry. I won't do it again. What? Write about it? Yes of course I will write about it. I feel it would be letting people down not to.

So, circumstances conspired to make watching The Brits necessary last night. For those who don't keep up, this is a satirical comedy programme about popular music. It is the industry's shop window of self-congratulation assisted by the children of Sun readers.

First the set. On stage there was a massive posse; a group of dancer/backer/on-hanger people who saved having to pay too much for backdrop. The arena was set out with a clear demarcation between the scrubbed and the unscrubbed. The celebrities, nominees and Simon Cowell sat around tables drinking champers. The hoi polloi were in the tiered seating heading back several miles. The tables were decorated such that an overhead shot appeared to be of a full box of chocolates.

The presenters were that well known duo PJ and Duncan, child actors from Byker Grove who had a hit once and managed to get nominated for a Brit for it. Since then they have made a living out of being professional Geordies Ant and Dec though no-one has any idea, without thinking about it, which one is Donnelly and which McPartlain, which little and which large and which of the two is the funny one. Come to think of it they may have been existing as a comedy duo with two straight men for some years.

From time to time comedians are put on stage to introduce awards. The wise ones (stand up John Bishop) make no attempts at humour but announce the winner, hand over the ugly statuette, and run off with the fee. The unwise (need I tell you this year it was Jimmy Carr again) make jokes about Madge's HRT supplies at which no-one laughs. The sound of thousands of weird people not laughing at once is an awesome one. A sort of silence of the odds. This effect was also used in auto-muting the vocal when Kanye West said something naughty. Since the backing track was not that complex, and the software pulled a bit of the music through the black hole too, and almost all the song was naughty, the effect was amazing. Norman Collier eat your heart out. That is how to do the faulty mic routine.

Hello darkness my old friend.

I drop in to the Brits every ten years or so and always search for the word which describes my reaction. It is like watching an amateur at a country fair having a go at dry-stone walling. Unassisted they would make a wonky edifice with no lasting potential whatsoever but you would be compelled to stop and stare. Come to think of it that is a genius analogy.

I began some time in the 1980s with Sam Fox, Mick Fleetwood and the dodgy autocue.

I revisited for Jarvis Cocker and the Michael Jackson protest.

Given my delight in the best of contemporary music it is always strange to hear nominees for awards of whom I have never heard, my home, car and life being Radio 1 free zones.

I usually wonder which audience elimination programme they won. Sam Smith. Sorry mate but who are you?

George Ezra sang his song.

The interviews involve telling people what a great year they've had, a statement with which they agree. 'It's been mad'. Then asking them how drunk they intend to get at the after-show party which is a great witness to the children of Sun readers.

The headline - Oh My God it's only Madonna - sang a song so dreadfully forgettable that after a few bars one of the backing singers grabbed her by the cloak and pulled her off stage. He failed to follow up with the Vulcan death grip or a blow to the head with an empty champers bottle so she got up and carried on.

This, in a world of warfare, political machinations and fascinating debates about the future of democracy, was the third item on ITV's self-generating news programme which followed.

I am going to buy some more batteries for the DVD remote today.

Tomorrow - the Kardashian bottom debate (cont'd)

Eurovision 2014

For the benefit of those not on Twitter here is the feed from Saturday night:

Ukraine 'My heart is like a dodgem singing underground.' Hamster wheel but no hamster.

Belarus have a tune and good hair. Boy banned.

I always find a trapeze adds a lot to a song.

Shawaddyreykjavik

Norway. This guy has piercings and tattoos. Probably had his soul pierced.

Welcome to the first key change of the evening. Should have decided which key to change to though.

So that's where all the depleted uranium went.

I expected the line 'You'll be wondering what I've done with your singer.' Montenegro

Marks deducted for ice skating.

You only get a point if you keep the national dress on for the whole song.

This is a Carry-on film matron. Poland.

Greekrap

Does bearded lady count as circus skills? #inappropriate Austria

Quick bass lesson - hold down at the top, pluck at the bottom. (A Twitter bass-player took issue with this, but they missed the point.)

Coda of German song was her Voice audition.

Apparently Sweden was a great song well performed. What do I know?

Le Jedward. France.

Conjoined hair. Unlucky. Russia.

Italy. O Remus negative

Iceland winning in the room so far.

Is there such a thing as gratuitous contortion?

The Spanish monsoon season has influenced this highly.

Switzerland. Quite like this.

Breathy vocal. Running, running, running. Asthmatic.

Malta'd images.

The Danish IT crowd. I love you, you're a peachy baby.

Every step you take.

Bond chord change. Nobody does it better.

The results of the Vynes Way jury. It looks bad for Poland.

Poland came last in the room with -11. Iceland won with 9

We voted for you. Please don't invade.

The whole country just shouted 'France has a point.' First time for everything.

Every time the camera catches the Austrian performer we deduct points retrospectively for fake tears.

Planning the Viennese food for next year.

Weird dream. Ice skating hamsters singing out of key backed by bearded lady on a circular piano, playing a bass upside-down.

Off

When it is a fine day I feel some sense of an urge to get out and enjoy the lovely part of the world where I live. But the tilley is a timid creature that prefers the indoors and so is delighted, on return from the gym followed by the odd bit of provision shopping, to have an excuse to lock the door and do the ironing whilst catching up on a couple of episodes of Breaking Bad (on season four), last night's football, a movie and some new music. Also to find time to do a bit of piano practice. And maybe supper out.

New music is the newest Steve Mason album, which I bought having heard him live last November, called Monkey Minds in the Devil's Time. Incredibly good.

I enjoyed Wolf People's Fain and so I raided their back catalogue and got hold of Steeple from 2010. Fain felt a bit Wishbone Ashy with lyrics from Traffic's all-dance-round-a-stone-circle-during-a-solstice period. Steeple has a track which is pure Jethro Tull but none the worse for that.

Time for an episode of The News Room before bed.

That was how I spent my time off this week.

Album of the Year

Time to award my album of the year prize (no more than goodwill and the sound of one hand clapping). Good display this year from:

Bonobo - Late Night Tales
Lovely selection of low-fi, chill-down stuff spoiled by having a long spoken word track at the end. Even if it was Benedict Cumberbatch reading an original story I never want to hear it again.
 

DaftPunk  - Random Access Memories
Great pop and deserved the accolades it got.
 

Foals - Holy Fire
I like the idea of maths-rock but this was mainstream maths-rock. Clever.
 

Iron and Wine - Ghost on Ghost
Clever song-writing and lyrically brilliant.
 

Junip - Junip
Jose Gonzales band. You know what to expect. If you don't, buy everything he has done. Now.
 

Post War Years - Galapagos
Brilliant young band from the Leam make enormous progress into mainstream. Hope 2014 is their year.

 

But for sheer unadulterated creativity, originality and versatility - there are not many albums I put on repeat - my prize goes to:

 

JagaJazzist - Live with Britten Sinfonia

 

Review of the Year

For many reasons it was a tough year for both me and Mrs A professionally, none of which need concern us now. It was a year that started for me with surgery and ended with many drives up the M5 to support my Mum through her hip replacement. It also included the first bad holiday we have had for years and ended with us both being ill at Christmas. 2012 is already being better in many ways.

January 31st is perhaps a little late for a review of 2011 but, in my defence, I'm really slow. I started it and forgot I hadn't finished.

These things made 2011 bearable.

Album of the year. Worthy mentions for Atlum Schema's four EPs, Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn. All good and at least one belting track on each. The lad deserves fame and fortune soon. Loved the second Battles album, Gloss Drop, Metals by Feist, Glasvegas' Euphoric Heartbreak and 4Ererevolution by Roots Manuva.

But for sheer vocal virtuosity, a skill which the Apprentice rarely acknowledges, Claire Maguire's Light After Dark gets the prize. She can sing so you hear Florence Welch, Annie Lennox, Kate Bush, Stevie Nicks and Joan Armatrading; yet all melanged uniquely.

Harry Baker's slam poetry at Cafe Create, Nailsea was beathtaking. Find him, see him live.

Bonobo Live at Bristol 02 was a good evening out; not least because the family came and we have few areas of cross-over. Last time we tried it was Herbie Hancock and I don't think I've quite been forgiven.

Comedy gig award to a rambling, and not especially sober, Dylan Moran. I wish I could be as erudite and amusing without rudeness when pickled.

Source Code was my escapist film of the year. Didn't quite take me where I expected and left a few things open at the end. Let's just pray they have no plans for Source Code II.

The i Paper improved my life immensely. If  I didn't fancy reading in bed there was a choice of three puzzles to do.

The New Battle Axes at Wraxall offered fine services to mid-week evenings off with Mrs Apprentice. Slightly pricey (you pay for the refit) but their two local real ales Flatcappers and Battle Axe are to die for. As is their way with a fruit crumble. Alcoholic pick-me-ups at home provided by New Zealand sauvignon blancs. Hard to find a bad one.

Escapist book of the year was Robert Harris' The Fear Index. A day in the life of a risk-taking banker. A bad day.

Foul-Mouthed Crooning

Rock music, Graham Cray used to teach, engages with the soul and the emotions before the brain. So we tend to hear a piece of rock/pop (I won't bore you by listing all the sub-genres) and say, 'This feels good,' before we notice that the lyrics are inappropriate. Anyone out there tapped their feet to Sympathy for the Devil?

Of course the Christian watch-dogs can jump on the 'ban it' bandwagon a little early. Banning things always gives them publicity. Back in the mid sixties there was a outcry about the Animals doing a version of House of the Rising Sun because of its glamorisation of alcohol, overlooking the fact that it was a warning against it, 'Oh mothers, tell your children, not to do what I have done.'

Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood had a complex message about delayed orgasm, by a group with a gay sex agenda. It was blocked by Mike Reid and banned by the BBC and has enjoyed huge commercial success ever since. It seemed to fall foul of the 'there are certain things you just don't talk about' rule.

Which brings us to Plan B, the performance name of Ben Drew. I saw him live a few years ago supporting Roots Manuva. He was clearly a gifted lyricist, singer, song-writer and guitarist but the content of his ditties was drugs, under-age sex and other unseemly stuff. I wasn't sure if he was being ironic, a story-teller or giving us an insight into what it was like to be him. What is beyond doubt is that I wouldn't play his songs to my mother (that's what PG means by the way).

At the moment I am playing Plan B's latest, The Defamation of Strickland Banks. He has only gone and reinvented himself as a soul crooner in the Raphael Saadiq mould with an occasional outbreak of rapping. No lyric sheet and you can't get everything at first listen but the web-site makes it clear that the issues he dealt with when I first saw him are still bubbling under. A title such as Love Goes Down doesn't over-stretch the imagination but we also discover that Stay Too Long is about post drinking violence. The final track What You Gonna Do? seems to me to invite me to react to his work. The next album will be urban again. Will I buy it? Listen to it? Does that change because of the style? By the way the song is actually about whether the police will release or charge a man they have arrested.

Song-writers are story tellers and we don't criticise novelists for covering brave issues. Nor do we assume they condone the behaviour they write about.

So I'll listen and enjoy Plan B without switching off all my critical faculties. And I bet my Mum would say, 'This is nice.' Cos in a funny sort of way, it is.

Eurovision 2010

If you missed it, this is what you missed:

Azerbaijan
'Drip Drip.' 'You smell like lipstick.' Eh? Female vocalist with pleasingly short dress but oops, only seventeen. Bookies favourite.

Spain
'Something Tiny.' Spain tend to go all novelty. Boy do these people not want to host next year. Real clock-work toys. How can you possibly put so much energy into something so unnecessary? They got to go again because someone interrupted them in a way no-one noticed.

Norway
'My Heart is Yours.' Shenandoah meets Titanic. At the key change there was no agreement as to which key to change to and several were chosen. If in doubt, sing louder. Keep the heart; take the oesophagus.

Moldova
'Run Away.' Fiddler with a mullet. True Europop is safe. Malfunction in the underwear department left us with stockings held up badly by over-long suspenders. Neither funny nor sexy.

Cyprus
'Time Changes Everything.' 4/4. Not that this will improve with age. Quite sweet. 'Make me a whore with the chemist.' Surely no chance apart from Greek points.

Bosnia Herzegovina
Not so much a key change as a song change. 'If we start breeding together we can bring the rain down.' Backing singers' outfits 10/10. Several songs tonight have not so much ended as expired breathily.

Belgium
'Me and my Guitar.' Solo singer. Should have brought the band. Pleasant change though. Popular in the arena.

Serbia
'Ovo je Balkan.' Imagine Jerry Dammers waking up in Belgrade with a hangover and a keyboard.

Belarus
'Butterflies.' What language is this in? Oh, English. Boyzonegoal. Backing singers grew wings. Really. 'No girl under eight will fail to ask for an outfit like that for Christmas.' (Graham Norton)

Ireland
'It's For You.' I'm waiting for everyone to grow wings now. Can't help it. B(all)ad. Key change.

Greece
'Opa!' Panathinaikos Shed End. Last minute equaliser. Lyre, lyre, drums on fire.

UK
'That Sounds Good to Me.' To who? Backing vocals off key. Very, very poor.

Georgia
'Shine.' You just knew the techno was going to cut in. It didn't. Lass can sing though. Massive pair of er, lungs.

Turkey
'We Could Be the Same.' Power pop, Euro-goth-rock hip-hop shock. Awesome. Stripping robot.

Albania
'It's All About You.' Perfectly acceptable café Europop. No chance. Fiddler on the hoof.

Iceland
Missing pie riddle solved. She shopped at Iceland. We wrecked the economy and diverted your planes. Left no time for song writing.

Ukraine
'Sweet People.' Frail lass. Wraith-like. Good work. No one cared.

France
'Allez olla olé.' Europop of the required standard 'cept it's the French. Dum di dum di di dum, dum di dum di di dum, dum di dum di di dum dum. Possible the worst dance routine in the history of dance routines.

Graham Norton; 'There is a drinking game where you take a shot for every mullet or violin.' Participants probably died during Moldova.

Romania
Two see-through Siamese pianos. Ah woah oh oh oh oh. Ah woah oh oh oh oh. The tightest leather catsuit I've ever seen. And I'm old and a persistent ogler of such.

Russia
'Lost and Forgotten.' Hope it is. Miss de Burgh. Petals fell from the roof. Singer brought along a sketch of his cell-mate to sing to. Jumpers.

Armenia
'Apricot Stone.' Hair and boob extensions. The apricot on stage sprouted at the key change. Possibly singing in Geordie.

Germany
'Satellite.' Nice rhythm. Bit different. Could do well. Liked it. (It won.)

Portugal
Há Dias Assim. Sorry. I switched off at chord two.

Israel
'Milim.' Missed the last few highs. Everyone loved it. The favourite. No idea why.

Denmark
'In a Moment Like This.' Every step you take; every move you make, I'll be sampling you. Looked like Stewart Copeland duetting with Myleene Klass. Twelfth key change in about thirteen songs.

Until next year then.

Four Tet

Kieran Hebden is one of the great reinventors of the music business. Every album I own of his (he performs as Four Tet) is a new genre. Yet all strangely, and obviously, his work.

Noises made by kids toys share your ears with samples, rhythm tracks and wonderful musicianship. He does the lot himself by and large.

I've never seen him live but look forward to doing so one day. Apparently when he tours a new album he sometimes doesn't play any of it but simply improvises a couple of hours set and then wanders off. You may catch him in a slightly manic, industrial mood so this is not a gig I'm going to with any but about three special gig-goer companions. He's my kind of guy though.

As an introduction watch and listen to Twenty Three off the Pause album here. Stick it for 49 seconds until the guitar comes in; you won't be disappointed. But don't buy or download any album on the basis of this. As I said; every album is a new departure. All the music shops I ever visit seem to categorise it differently. Dancy trippy loungy trance-core. That just about covers it

Eurovision

Missed Eurovision? Not to worry. MSS brings you the lowdown on the songs to save you having to listen to them. Lyric snatches are best guesses.

The adjustment to the judging system this year meant that there was less chance of block votes being over-influential. That said there was no adjustment to the song-writing system and so we were presented with a rather greater selection of boring old tosh than usual.

Full marks to the Russians for not having long gaps between acts; twenty-five songs were all over inside two hours to make space for the voting - the bit most people are interested in.

The jury is still out on Graham Norton. Tel's boots are hard to fill and Norton tried hard. Possibly he hinted just a little too much that he'd heard stuff before and been an 'insider.' But he didn't spoil it and deserves another year.

Lithuania
Betrilbyed crooner playing gentle piano riff which mysteriously continued when he left the piano. Backing singers dresses reassuringly short. Bodes well for the ogling community. Appropriate start. Lead singer ended by setting his hand on fire.

Israel
An Arab and a Jew singing, 'There must be another way' in English. The verses were in other languages so they may also have been trading insults. 'When I cry, I cry for both of us.' Exactly. Ended by playing percussion on empty Castrol GTX-shaped cans. Knew it was all about oil really.

France
Heroin chic. So 1990s. 'Maintenant c'est printemps aussi en Francais' or quelque chose.

Sweden
'Can you keep a secret? I'm in love with you.' Oops. Accidentally shared it with the whole of Europe. Dead mink clawed their way up her dress as the new genre of techno-opera was born.

Croatia
Black clothes. Wind tunnel. White clothes.

Portugal
Finding appropriate garments for the fat lass. Always a chore. Only Los Lobos can do a cool accordion solo and they were nowhere to be seen. Three to one on that the bongo player is gay.

Iceland
Correct Eurovision-winner rhythm. Great teeth. First key change of the evening.

Greece
You wait seven songs for a key change and then... There have been some great Eurovision dance routines over the years. This lot should have videod them. Pumping dance anthem.

Armenia
Cracking intro. Everything changed when the tune started. Go West on a bad day. 'Ti di di ti di di ti di di dum. Sister move your body.' Key change. 'Jump it up with a log fire.' Might have misheard that last bit.

Russia
Wore a beach towel. Sang flat. Got older. They so don't want to have to pay to stage this again.

Azerbaijan
Always fun to spot which of the backing singers felt disappointed not to be up front. In this case it was all of them. Each female performer had one leg painted gold.

Bosnia Herzogovina
Little Drummer Boy by Take Thatski.

Moldova
You will have experienced the novelty act at the pantomime. Final scene of Act 1.

Malta
The fat lady sings but it's not over yet. Key change. Hell of a voice. Not visual.

Estonia
Rhythm and stringy. Almost OK. 6th.

Denmark
A band. A song. A chance. Came 13th. What do we know?

Germany
Oh dear. 'Do the heedy hi haz. Do the houchy bang bang.' Minnie mouched.

Turkey
Dreadful. Dreadful. Dreadful. Could win. 4th.

Albania
White faces are acceptable only for mimes.

Norway
Sweet Norwegian story. Bore no relation to the music. In keeping with the tradition that the song you think most unlikely to do well usually wins, it won.

Ukraine
Three silver MDF hamster wheels. Scanty clothing. 'Baby, baby you're so high - be my, be my Valentine. Three months late love. You are scratchy bum.' Roman centurions on stage.

Romania
Something fishy. Graham Norton pointed out the vocalist also on stage on whom the camera never focused.

UK
Andrew Lloyd-Webber live on piano. Singer had a good voice bar one slip. Dreadful song. Key change. Words didn't all fit in her mouth.

Finland
The Fins have become Eurovision's novelty act but this year they tried to tick all the boxes that have previously delivered success. Rap. Fire. Clichés. We had to wait 23 acts for frocks as tight as the Lithuanian's. Stopped rather than ended.

Spain
Power pop with a big-nosed dancer. 'Come on and take me; come on and shake me.'

Enjoyable evening.

John Martyn RIP

Sad to hear singer, songwriter, creative, addictive John Martyn has died aged 60. He made some wonderful music. Rather remarkably this means that when I saw an unbelievable, outdoor, afternoon set at the Reading Festival 1973 he was only 25 years old.

Most people say 1973's Solid Air was never bettered but I really love And from 1996 and The Church with one Bell (1998).

It's just the downward pull of human nature
It's coming every day to take you on.

Thanks for the back catalogue. Rest in peace from your demons.

Hear a 2008 live version of a 1973 tune here.

Gift of Screws

A kind friend bought MSS a CD for Christmas. It had, he said, been in the billboard charts for a lot of the year yet had made little impact in this country. If we didn't like it he would have it back as he wanted to hear it.

We take a break to applaud the courage of someone who would buy a friend a CD he hadn't heard himself. That said, this particular friend quite often buys books we've already read so it makes a change.

The album is Lindsey Buckingham's solo album Gift of Screws. He was with Fleetwood Mac for some years during which time they had legendary bust-ups, complicated inter-band male-female relationships and produced the album of the year back in about 1976. Just as punk was getting going almost every one in town possessed a copy of Rumours.

It's great. Totally contemporary, distinctive style and yet could have been recorded the day after Rumours was finished and production polished in 2008. The songs are the laments of a guy who has been down and got back up very slowly. Hurt and recovered. Naughty now nice. Mainly up-tempo. Enjoy.