Mick Lewis’s Top Ten — April 23

by Mick Lewis
23 April 2006

1. Arab Strap – The Last Romance (Transdreamer)
   I’m not so familiar with the earlier work of Arab Strap (or with an Arab strap), but the more I listen to The Last Romance, the more I fall in love with it. The LP contains several songs (“Stink,” “[If There’s] No Hope for Us,” “Speed-Date”) that have a churning, menacing-yet-melodic spirit similar to that of The National, whose lead singer sometimes sounds like Arab Strap singer and wordsmith Aidan Moffat (who was first, eh?). Other songs are softer in music if not in message – official LP closer “There Is No Ending” declares to a lover that “if you can love my growing gut, my rotten teeth and graying hair, then I can guarantee I’ll do the same.”
2. Robert Wyatt & Friends – Theatre Royal Drury Lane Sunday 8th September 1974 (Hannibal/Rykodisc)
   Highlights include “Memories,” “Sea Song,” the meandering “Alifib,” a great vocal by keyboardist Julie Tippetts on her own “Mind of a Child,” and a propulsive, brass-drenched, joyous cover of The Monkees “I’m a Believer” (written by Neil Diamond). As perennial Wyatt supporter John Peel says to the audience in his otherwise droll introduction, “there’s an hour, or so, of very, very good music coming your way!”
3. The Talk – The Sinners of Daughters (MoRisen)
   This Charlotte, NC’s group that doesn’t sound very American has been expanding its sonic palette to incorporate the pre-Oasis Creation Records guitar sound of bands like The House of Love (on “I Started Running”) and Swervedriver (on “These Swollen Eyes”) as well as other contemporary Brit bands like The Railway Children (on “It Comes With the Territory”) and The Auteurs (on “I Don’t Want to Choose” and “Any Other Saturday;” Williams’s voice is also a dead ringer for that of Auteurs frontman Luke Haines throughout the LP). The Talk also unexpectedly evoke ‘90s agit-pop Brit duo Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine (!) with punchy synths and horns on “With Guns in Our Hands” and “N.Y.L.A.” This LP gives saints and sinners alike plenty to talk about.
4. Marianne Faithfull – Live in Hollywood DVD (Eagle Vision)
   This DVD is from her 2005 tour that celebrated over 40 years since her debut single, Jagger/Richards composition “As Tears Go By,” featured here along with her later co-written song with Mick Jagger & Keith Richards, “Sister Morphine.” Backed by a crack bluesy jazz-tinged quintet led by longtime guitarist Barry Reynolds, Faithfull plies her sinewy vocals to her own modern classics “Broken English” and “Strange Weather,” as well as to her gritty versions of John Lennon’s “Working Class Hero” and otherwise unreleased 1968 Roger Waters song, “Incarceration of a Flower Child” (recorded for her 1999 LP Vagabond Ways). Bonus features include a thoughtful and informative interview in which Faithfull reflects on her catalogue.
5. Human Television – Look At Who You’re Talking To (Gigantic)
   Debut LP by Philly/Brooklyn-via-Gainesville, Florida group that returns to the sounds of my youth (Galaxie 500, The Feelies, early-Yo La Tengo)—if someone had told me this was recorded in 1991, I would believe. Produced by Chris Zane (Calla, Ambulance Ltd.). Looking forward to seeing the band’s live show!
6. Sia live @ Bowery Ballroom (New York), Monday April 17
7. The Beta Band – The Best of—Music (Astralwerks/EMI)
   After eight years of trippy psych/folk/pop/electronica/rock sound collage, Edinburgh, Scotland’s adventurous Beta Band has called it a day and Best of gives a hearty helping of the music that enchanted and bewitched audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. Mixing singles, EP, and LP tracks from their entire discography, Best of clocks in just short of 75 minutes, but skips through time and space on a musical journey that doesn’t sound quite like anything else.
8. Friends with Money (R)
   I really enjoyed Nicole Holofcener’s last film, Lovely & Amazing, and I am looking forward to seeing more of her acutely-detailed portraits of emotional interaction. Nice inside joke of a title to play off of Jennifer Aniston’s starring role, too.
9. Acid House Kings – Sing Along With… (TwentySeven)
   Sweden’s Acid House Kings are Johan Ankgergard’s precursor band to Club 8 and The Legends. AHK originally formed in 1991 and featured Johan’s brother Niklas Ankgergard (later of Red Sleeping Beauty) on vocals and guitars. The Ankgergård school of pop is an institution of purebred indie pop with large dollops of jingle-jangle guitars, wistful lyrics, and smooth melodies. While I miss the Astrud Gilberto-isms of Club 8 singer Karolina Komstedt, newcomer Julia Lannerheim is ample consolation on relentlessly hooky songs such as “The Heart is a Stone,” “7 Days” (which lifts a swatch of melody from the My Life Story b-side “The Return of Emerald Green”), and “Sleeping.”
10. Various Artists – Re·Bop: THe Savoy Remixes (Savoy Jazz World Wide)