I’m not that big on end of year lists, but I did have a best album (Staff Benda Bilili) and song (Kid Rock) of 2009. I also love to browse end of year ‘best of lists’ from music mags and websites to look for albums I’ve missed.

So I’m not going to ask you to send me our best of lists (unless of course you want to) – but what I will ask you to do is to think about are the musical highs and lows of 2010. Then just put them in comment box below for us all to discuss – for our regular contributors please feel free to add some music/video whatever you want.

To start us off here’s a couple of highs and lows for me:

Highs
Discovering Wolf People and their new album Steeple
04 Morning Born

Lows
The death of Stuart Cable

Image by tuneyfish.com

OK here’s the story – Staff Benda Bilili are a group of Congolese street musicians. They live around the grounds of the zoo in Kinshasa, and play music which is rooted in rumba, with elements of old-school rhythm’n'blues and reggae. The core of the band consists of four senior singers/guitarist, who are all disabled (they suffered from poliomyelitis when they were young) and move around in spectacularly customized tricycles. They are backed by a younger rhythm section consisting of ex-sheges, abandoned street kids who were taken under the protection of the older members of the band. The soloist is an 18 year-old boy who plays astounding electric guitar-like solos on a one-stringed lute he designed and built himself out of a tin can (Wikipedia).

What more can I say… apart from the music being mesmerizing, simplistic, genius-like and merits being my album of the year not because of the story but because of the music and the passion and the joy that can be heard from the songs on the album. Please, if you only buy one album I recommend – buy this one.

Cover image by Troy Stoi

January 2010 Music Mix Notes
Please remember to respect copyright law; if you like a song from the mix, there’s a very good chance you will also like the album – so do me and the artist a favour and buy the CD.

Thought I would try something a little new for this month – with two 3-in-a-rows to be found in the mix. I’m not getting all Lord of the Rings on you – simply added 3 songs from my album of the year and 3 songs all connected to one artist – in this case Dave Rawlings.

As always, I hope you receive the deepest joy and pleasure from the magical moments contained within – I know I did putting the mix together – either way, let me know. Oh, and if you like a song buy the album.

Eric Clapton & Steve Winwood – Them Changes
A great way to start the New Year, a new mix with an old Hendrix/Band of Gypsy’s song that’s over 40 years old. But time doesn’t stop this being a classic and Clapton and Winwood make it sound so fresh and alive – the rest of the album is just as good, overflowing with Blind Faith/Clapton/Winwood songs.

Rush – Earthshine
One of my favourite songs from their more recent albums – just love Lifeson’s guitar as the song simply powers along. Great version on their live Rio CD and DVD.
 
 
 
Deep Purple – Never Before
For all his faults, Ritchie Blackmore knew how to play a guitar and as this track highlights could play it funky as well. From their 1972 Machine Head album this song reminds me so much of my youth and the days and nights listening to songs from Purple/Zep et al. – deep joy.
 

Heartless Bastards – The Mountain
I do like a song that plods along – and this song is such a great plodder. The band are new to me with this song from their third album also called ‘The Mountain’. The rest of the album is just as good – blues/rock led by Erika Wennerstrom, who does the plodding on the guitar.
 

AC/DC – Love Song
I know what you’re thinking – I thought the same, “This isn’t AC/DC”. Well it is and it’s actually a great song – very different but very good. Originally only released on the Australian version of ‘High Voltage’, ‘Love Song’ evolved from an unrecorded song called ‘Fell In Love’, also written by Malcolm Young and Dave Evans. This earlier version of the song had different lyrics; the finished lyrics as heard on the album were added by the late Bon Scott.

Neil Young – The Loner
On November 9-10, 1968, Young performed two shows at Canterbury House in Ann Arbor, Michigan. This song comes from these performances and shows Young at his acoustic best. It took me a while to enjoy the whole Neil Young thing but like a good whine its gets better as it matures.

Staff Benda Bilili – Sala Keba, Moto Moindo and Je t’aime
The first of my three-in-a-rows involves my album of the year – Très Très Fort by Staff Benda Bilili. I bought this CD while on holiday in the UK after reading a couple of reviews. Two things caught my attention in these reviews, first the fact that they were compared to the Buena Vista Social Club and secondly they sounded so different to anything else I has heard of before, almost like a bad Hollywood B movie. I simply had to buy.

As you can read in my Album of the Year post, the music is simply stunning, with these 3 songs only partially demonstrating the sheer joy and almost childlike genius contained in the album. It’s also interesting how well Sala Keba follows Neil Young – like it was meant to be.

Lee Fields & The Expressions – Ladies
….and this follows on nicely from Je t’aime and has such a good groove:
 
 

“You’re sugar. You’re spice and everything nice.
A man is incomplete without a lady in his life.
You can take a bad day and make it turn out right.
You can take a blind soul and make him see the light.
You can take a broken heart and make it new again.
Or you can break his heart and make him less than a man.
You can make a man feel like a king.”

Fabbo lyrics from a man who is a bona-fide, 100%, unadulterated, pure, gut-bucket soul singer – nothing more nothing less. And he does make some sweet Soul music.

Four Tet – And Then Patterns
From the album Everything Ecstatic comes a little bit of electronica for the month and what a good song to pick. Four Tet’s previous album (Rounds) is, I think, better, but this song stands out for me as just perfect, chill out music with a lovely melody and back beat – mmm nice.
 

El Perro Del Mar – Change of Heart
El Perro Del Mar has been nominated in 6 categories at the Swedish Grammy Award 2010 – Best album, Best composer, Best pop, Best producer, Best writer and MTV’s Best video. It’s a lovely dreamy, mellow song that just floats around your head after a few listens. El Perro Del Mar literally means The Dog from the Sea in Spanish and is a musical project that was founded in December 2003 in Gothenburg, Sweden by Sarah Assbring and follows on perfectly from Four Tet.

Gillian Welch – Revelator
 
 
 
 
 
 
Dave Rawlings Machine – Method Acting / Cortez The Killer
 
 
 
 
 
 
Bright Eyes – Four Winds
 
 
 
 
 
 
Are all part of my second ‘three-in-a-row’ with the link being Dave Rawlings. I first heard of Rawlings on Gillian Welch’s album Time (The Revelator) and was intrigued by the sound of his guitar. To achieve this sound he flat picks a small archtop guitar, a 1935 Epiphone Olympic. This guitar makes such a distinctive sound and has been his primary instrument since hitting the big time with Welch. The one he uses for recording and shows has a carved arched solid spruce wood top, a carved arched solid mahogany back and mahogany sides – must weigh a ton on stage!
Great lyrics on Revelator:

Darling remember from when you come to me
that I’m the pretender,
I’m not what I’m supposed to be
but who could know, lf I’m a traitor?
Times the revelator, revelator.

They caught the katy, and left me a mule to ride.
The fortune lady came along she walked beside,
but every word seemed to date her.
Times the revelator, the revelator.

Up in the morning up and on the ride.
I drive in to corning and all the spindles whine
and every day is getting straighter.
Times the revelator the revelator

Leaving the valley and fucking out of sight
I’ll go back to cali where I can sleep out every night
and watch the waves and move the fader.
Queen of fakes and Imitators
Times the revelator.

The final track (Four Winds) is such a good track bouncing along like a Space Hopper on heat. Ranked #5 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 Best Songs of 2007, it’s my favorite track on a very good album.

Teitur – Catherine the Waitress
Teitur (pronounced Tie-tor) is a singer-songwriter from the Faroe Islands. He has toured extensively throughout Europe and the United States since releasing his major label debut, Poetry & Aeroplanes. I first heard of Teitur on Corrine Bailey Rae’s first album when he co-wrote ‘Choux Pastry Heart’ – a lovely sparse ballad. This made me buy Poetry & Aeroplanes which is good but one of those albums which I sadly don’t play very often (I have this week though). His latest album The Singer has been described as “a delicate chrysalis that conceals darker matter” and “like aural marmite” which just about sums it up.

Catherine the waitress if you only knew where my mind is
“Is there anything you’d like?”
If I could only tell you!
You haven’t even noticed me, but, oh you are so good to me!

Catherine the waitress I don’t intend to seduce you.
I’m not a resident, I’m not a regular.
But if I lived here this would be my favourite bar!
Cross my heart and hope to die,
I’m not drunk, I’m not high!

The accident happened one year ago, according to the lines in my hand.
A requiem is playing behind my eyes,
but you don’t see it, Catherine, do you?

Catherine the waitress if you only knew where my mind is
“Is there anything you’d like?”
If I could only tell you.
You haven’t even noticed me, but, oh you are so good to me!”

Foo Fighters – Wheels
Sometimes you have to remind yourself that the Foo Fighters are one of the biggest rock bands on the planet. This is because — despite the fact that they’ve sold millions of albums, won Grammys, toured the world several times etc. — they are basically four normal guys. Half of them look like art teachers. The other half are drummers. None of them are really rock stars. This is probably why I like them so much.

This new song from their greatest hits collection is a grand example of a rock song even though it had received some bad press – I don’t really know why but it reminds me of a Neil Young song, not sure which one maybe it’s the style of song.

Eric Clapton – Sweet Home Chicago
One of only two music DVDs I own, the other being ‘Rush in Rio’, so a small but perfectly formed collection. Played the Clapton DVD the other day and had forgotten how good it is, with this song my favourite. I did buy an old Robert Johnson collection but it failed to get me moving like this remake – which I know is a shame.

Space Ritual – Otherworld
I think their mission statement from their website says it all really:

“After light years of travel through hyper-space, learning and experiencing the ancient rituals, the cosmic wheel, the hurricanes and solar winds from a far off nebulae, the great shifting of astronomical tides – the vermillion deserts and jeweled forests of other planes and planets, through electric madness and asteroid storms, black holes, exploding galaxies, supernovae, red dwarfs, influence of anti-matter, fantemattir, through solar flares, past the rabbit in the moon, back again on course now through the galaxies of love and light to beam down to your beloved Terra Earth Base 1.

Returning for a rare manifestation on the material plane at a stabilized energy vibration-point near you – after their long search for intelligent life throughout the cosmos (despite some problems with some Earth cultures) but performing the ritual of uniting the tribes – all beings at different levels of spiritual development communicate the groove, joining in the true spirit, aspiring to the flame. The bright white light, the one love, loving awareness, getting higher together, have fun, greet and meet, move seat and feet to the beat, with Space?Ritual on tour.”

I will add that it’s a great song from a bunch of old Hawkwind geezers

Keith Jarrett – God Bless the Child
Now this really is a gift to you and something that should chill you out after the mayhem of unwrapping presents and fighting for the stuffing.

Keith Jarrett with Gary Peacock on bass and Jack DeJohnette on drums just oozes class and sophistication. This track is from their first Standards album (both are excellent) and it’s the album I always listen to when I need to relax, especially on a day like today as it puts all the madness of this world into perspective and leaves me feeling like my world ain’t a bad place to be.

Once again we’re at the end of my Music Mix – I hope you enjoy.

All the best, Laughing Dog

Don’t forget – if you like a song on the Mix, let me know, I’d love your feedback.

The Music Mix 06 [a 178mb zip file] will be available for one month from today – until midnight on 31 January 2010.

Please support the artists – if you like a track, buy the album!

Music for the Month ~ Music Mix 06 ~ January 2010