2014 RETROSPECTIVE - DAY 5

DAMIEN RICE - MY FAVOURITE FADED FANTASY

When I die, I want it marked down in my obituary that I survived the Great Damien Rice Drought of 2006-2014. There was such a long gap between Damien's second album 9 and the release of My Favourite Faded Fantasy last month that I almost forgot he existed ... and then I remembered and fell to my knees because Damien Rice makes me feel things like no other artist does. The first piece of music to ever make me cry was 'Accidental Babies'; just typing the words brings a lump to my throat. You may notice the weak attempts at hiding my affection with humour; to be quite honest, the effect Rice's work has on me makes me feel uncomfortable. He is, by far, the most arresting songwriter in my music library, and if you disagree I will fight you (see? I did it again. I can't handle this level of sincerity and yet the work demands it). 

You see, the reason that I find his music so compelling is that I believe every word he sings. With some music you don't believe a thing, and then other music is quite compelling and you believe it and just let it sit, and then there's Damien Rice. When his voice cracks on 'The Greatest Bastard', more than once, you better believe I'm slumped forward in my seat, reaching for tissues, utterly devastated. It's not a pretty image, but then the emotions on My Favourite Faded Fantasy are not pretty; no one could say they don't recognise them. All through 'The Greatest Bastard' Rice toys with my faith in his words as he constantly questions himself; almost whispering he says "I made you laugh, I made you cry, I made you open up your eyes ... didn't I?" By the end of the album, as with every Damien Rice album, I just want to give him a big hug. And I'm not a hugging person. 

It's good to have him back. 

2014 RETROSPECTIVE - DAY 4

TAKING BACK SUNDAY - HAPPINESS IS

It has been nearly 10 years since I first encountered Taking Back Sunday, watching them support Green Day at the Milton Keynes Bowl, and it's been about 8 years since I started seriously listening to their work. I found them at the perfect time; I had just discovered boys and, more importantly, their tendency to hurt you endlessly. Taking Back Sunday provided the pointed, bittersweet soundtrack to this awkward stretch of adolescence, and they have stayed with me to this day; a little bit like the Harry Potter books, I've grown up with TBS always around.

The Harry Potter comparison may seem a bit strange, but the final track of Happiness Is, 'Nothing At All', gave me the same kind of feeling as reading The Deathly Hallows. The realisation of the journey from adolescence to adulthood is a serious one for those that feel it, and 'Nothing At All' is the beautiful, lingering coda of an album which is undoubtedly Taking Back Sunday's most adult body of work yet. The reason that I still listen to Taking Back Sunday when other music from my younger years has fallen by the wayside is that as I have grown, so have they; in the same way that they have never sounded as adult as on Happiness Is, I have never felt so adult as at the time in which I first listened to it. When so many bands around them kept still, Taking Back Sunday never stopped running. I hope they don't stop any time soon. 

2014 RETROSPECTIVE - DAY 3

I've been thinking a lot about this blog recently. Why do I do it, who is it for, standard existential concerns. I am enjoying this extended schedule of posting, not least because it has made me think about form and style; I have tried to do something different with the end-of-year model and as a result, I'm also scrutinising the way I write on here. I am happy for the few readers that I have on this platform, but ultimately I write for myself and I have allowed a more personal edge to come through (while at the same time trying to unlearn many bad habits of music writing that I have accumulated over the years). Basically, this has become less of a polished Music Thing and more of just me rambling on about records that I like. And I'm OK with that. 

FOSTER THE PEOPLE - SUPERMODEL

Never in a million years did I think that a Foster The People record would make it onto any best-of list of mine, and yet I have to scold my former self for being so close-minded. Having had 'Pumped Up Kicks' forced down my throat by every media outlet possible in the summer of 2011, I had developed a kind of negative Pavlovian response to any mention of the trio. In fact, when I first heard Supermodel I didn't know who it was by; it was one of many records put on at work by my colleagues in the name of pure curiosity. About halfway through the record I checked out what was playing and, rather than turning it off, I turned it up and went back to work. 

Like with many good albums, Supermodel can be enjoyed on a number of levels. What caught my interest was the sheer amount of groove: see 'Are You What You Want To Be?', 'Best Friend'. What kept me coming back was Mark Foster's understated delivery on tracks like 'Goats In Trees' and 'Fire Escape'. Lyrically this record gets pretty introspective, and it imparts what I've found to be a rare gift, giving the illusion of singing, and indeed speaking, to me and only me. And then of course all on its own sits ' Pseudologia Fantastica', a behemoth nestled in the middle of Supermodel, charging and snarling for 5 and a half minutes straight with next to no relent. As a once staunch critic, consider my socks charmed off. 

2014 RETROSPECTIVE - DAY 2

WOMAN'S HOUR - CONVERSATIONS

One of the most striking moments of Conversations, the debut from Kendal quartet Woman's Hour, comes in the middle of 'Darkest Place'; Fiona Burgess' voice sounds almost too close as she sings of a lost love: "wherever I look you're always there/I close my eyes and it's even worse/you hang around on the clothes I wear/and I can't even tell you how much it hurts". There are no lyrical flourishes here, no metaphor or allegory. The simplicity and starkness of these lines are beyond devastating. 

This is not an isolated incident. Conversations constantly brings forth the lump in the throat, battled back day after day, and puts a soothing hand on your back as you let it all out. From start to finish, this is a hugely cathartic record; the listener is gifted a seemingly endless sonic expanse but, like when the mind becomes clear, only then do you realise that you are forced to confront the nothingness and all that comes with it. Nicholas Graves' sparse keys open up the space, while the guitar work of Will Burgess skirts around the vocals, sometimes approaching, sometimes hanging back. 

For me, this record shows that catharsis begets catharsis; it comes so close to speaking to the most primal pain in us that it inspires the listener to pick up the baton and continue the quest of wrestling that bittersweet feeling into a creative capsule. Conversations is perhaps the most unashamedly personal album I've heard this year and because of this I am continually enamoured by it. 

2014 RETROSPECTIVE - DAY 1

Today is the 1st of December, and music writers everywhere are putting the finishing touches to their end-of-year lists. This blog is no stranger to such behaviour, but this year I would like to do something different. For every day in December you will find a post dedicated to a note-worthy album of 2014; that's right, 31 days, 31 albums. No ranking, no scores, no even numbers, just a lot of gushing over good music. After all, it is the season of goodwill ... so without further ado, let's get started. 

EAST INDIA YOUTH - TOTAL STRIFE FOREVER

Pablo Picasso had been painting for over a decade before he embarked on his Blue Period; for the first time in his career, he found a way of expressing the austerity and sorrow surrounding him without the restrictions of realism and formal instruction. The artwork for Total Strife Forever suggests that the record is East India Youth's very own blue period, but the playfulness of the title helps to ward off any serious attempt at a comparison; Will Doyle is hardly The Old Guitarist. Perhaps the best example of the resistance to "total strife" is 'Heaven, How Long', the centrepiece of the album. Lyrically there is plenty of 'grey sky' thinking here but the music teeters on a knife-edge between hope and despair, before the crescendo hits and lands somewhere between the two, a truce between resignation and defiance. This is the overarching tone of Total Strife Forever: a series of sighs, the tone of which to be deciphered by the listener.

I remember the first time I heard Total Strife Forever; I used to work in a small record store, and upon entering the shop for my first shift of the new year my colleague held up the CD and asked, "Have you heard of this East India Youth bloke?". I had heard of him thanks to the Quietus, and between my colleague and I there was enough curiosity to put the record on. Unusually, we stayed silent as we listened. My expectations were defied again and again as I stacked shelves and served customers; I had no idea what exactly it was that I was listening to, and because of this I was immediately fond of it. This album was my first of 2014 and it has been a comforting, ever-present companion.