There’s something about a search for fine detail in the music I’ve listened to this year, whether it’s reaching to recognise the Orkney birdsong in Erland Cooper’s Holm (Variations & B-Sides) or conjuring up images of the characters Arlo Parkes so vividly portrays in Collapsed in Sunbeams.
As we ride towards the holiday break on our magic reindeer, it’s time for one last theartsdesk on Vinyl, a seasonal special that, if you scroll down, contains all the usual up-to-date music reviews but, before that, takes a look at Yuletide-themed releases, reissues and heritage fare that might make great presents. As ever, all musical life newly pressed to plastic is here. Dive in.
VINYL OF THE FESTIVE SEASON
According to local press, Yungblud’s fans had been queuing up outside the Barrowland throughout the day before each gig in his two-night Glasgow stint. If that was one indication of the reverence his following hold him in, another came early in this performance, when he briefly delayed “I Love You, Will You Marry Me” to allow an actual proposal to go ahead down at the front. If your songs are considered suitable for popping the question to, then you know you are connecting with people.
Christmas albums can traditionally be slippery beasts with a whole host of quality control issues. This is not unlike the compilation albums that also make an appearance at this time of year, with one or maybe two previously unreleased tracks, which are targeted to separate long-term fans from their cash.
When those cold winter nights start closing in, there is really only two choices for facing up to the unpleasantness that this brings. Stay at home, batten down the hatches, whack up the heating and blow the expense. Or go out and immerse yourself in some hot and sweaty rock’n’roll.
Perhaps surprisingly for a band famed for the raw, tightly wrought, balled-up fury of their music, the most affecting moments of Idles’ fourth album are slower numbers. Chief among these is “Progress”, whose looping, repeated lyrics may reflect singer Joe Talbot’s ongoing reflections on putting drug addiction behind him. Lines such as “I don’t wanna feel myself come down” are given added potency by a threatening shroud of tunefully warped, loping band underpinning.
Peter Culshaw’s occasional global music radio show returns with a two-hour conversation with one of the most innovative and enduring post-punk artists.
“We’ve always tossed in some super-dire, high-voltage, death-trip lyrics that offset the merriment of a melody,” John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants explained recently. And that, in essence, has been a substantial part of the band’s unchanging proposition ever since 1982 when Flansburgh and John Linnell, who had been high school friends in Lincoln, Massachusetts, started the band.
Upon emerging onstage at the Barrowland, Fontaines DC took time to pass flowers into the crowd. Aside from the occasional thank-you later on, that was the only genteel note struck in a thrilling, compelling and often bruising set. Their last visit to Glasgow back in 2019 had been hindered at times by some dubious sound, but there were no such issues here. Instead, this was a group in control throughout, pacing the set well and sounding rousingly triumphant by the night’s end.
There is a three song segment midway through Manic Street Preachers’ set which suddenly ramps everything up. For this brief while, the performance and response in the sold-out, nigh-on-2000-capacity venue, elevates the concert from another decent gig on another tour in front of a devoted fanbase, to something more memorable and truly electric.