Thursday, December 19, 2013

Mojo's album of the year

Music

Bill Callahan - Dream river: Three brilliant albums on the trot. With his almost spoken word vocal style, at first listen his music can sound a bit samey, but it doesn't take long to absolutely love every track.

Haim - Days are gone: Iv'e followed th hype surrounding this US indie/pop outfit, and read the comparisons to Fleetwood Mac. I suppose there are similarities, but there's as many electro pop influences there to me as mid seventies California. I like it, but don't think it quite lived up to the hype.

Hugh Masakela - Home is where the music is: Obviously I have heard of Hugh Masakela, but I didn't really have any idea of what strand of Jazz he represented. This is from the early seventies, and is the kind of fusion jazz Miles davis had pioneered. It is absolutely superb, I love it when they get funky, but it's a killer album from first to last.

Kings of Leon - Mechanical Bull: It's a decent album, but they haven't really refound the mojo of those first two or three albums. There are some pretty good tracks on it, but it's not really an album you want to put on again and again.

Manic street preachers - Rewind the film: I've really liked their last couple of albums, which were on the hard rock side of indie, so I was a bit disappointed to read that they'd gone back to a more acoustic poppier sound. More fool me, because this is a realy belting album, chock full of cracking tunes, radio friendly in a good way.

Mulatu Astatke - Sketches of Ethiopia: World music, fusion jazz, I don't know how you'd label Astatke but he makes great music. This is another excellent album from the Ethiopian bandleader.

Nightmares on wax - Feelin' good: One of the original trip hop bands, still going and still delevering the goods, for me anyway. Chilled at times, super catchy at others, an enjoyable listen.



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