Sunday 26 January 2014

The Listening Club - 26th January 2014

Hallo chums! @JimMcCauley here, doing the honours this week while Eric's off on his hols. So instead of Amsterdam this week's edition's coming to you from the Beautiful Georgian City of Bath (TM), where the sun's finally, hesitantly, putting his hat on. I've been nursing a gentle hangover after sampling a fair old bit of single malt at an excellent and completely inauthentic Burns' Night supper. I was the only one there to show up in a (pretty fabulous) kilt and the haggis was vegan. I'm still not entirely sure what a neep is.

Last week @samsmitter did his Listening Club duty and treated us to Love's "Four Sail", a later and lesser-known offering from Arthur Lee and his merry men. The late 60s vibe went proved a stone groove hit and provoked actual talk of face-painting. Steady, now. So thanks to Sam for the pick and his well-aimed fling of the frisbee at @jonnydapigg, who'll be taking charge of things round here for his selection next week.

For now, though, it's the Cooking Vortex! You've deliberated, cogitated and digested, and come up with quite a splendidly diverse running buffet of musical delicacies. It's been a treat to assemble; thanks to everyone who sent a track!

Direct MP3 download is here, or if you prefer some hot Mixcloud action you can get it right here (usual caveat about Mixcloud telling you at least some of the song titles applies).

Search #listeningclub to join the conversation, and follow @listeningclub for the admin.

See you tonight at 8PM GMT!

Sunday 19 January 2014

The Listening Club - 19th January 2014

Greets and Saluts to you all, hope all is fine!

All jolly here in the 'Dam, with the sound of manifold plans being drawn up. First off I'm referring to the planned #Dambusters LC meetup which looks like occurring at the end of April here in Amsterdam (Kings Day weekend, lordy, that's going to be something...). Looking forward to meeting, greeting and so forth with as many of you as can make it over - seriously, move mountains for a long weekend if you can folks, it's the best time to do it - a splendid time is guaranteed for all, as they say!

And secondyfold, and more important for the short term, I'm away on hols in South Africa from the end of the coming week, which will mean I'll be off radar for the next two weeks. I might have net access for a chunk of my away time, but that may not prove the case - until I get there I don't know, and I certainly don't want to rely on it, so we really need a temporary manager to step forward and run 'tings. Also next week will be (thanks to @cakehugga's great suggestion) the #cookingvortex (yep, songs about foods and cooking and the general like please!), so whoever takes over will need the technical smarts to gather up the tunes and assemble the vortex! Please step forward if you recokon you could do it, sure we'd all be massively grateful!

(Also we could have 2 temp managers, one for each week - I'll give them admin access to this here blog too natch...)

Any, and furthermore, hoo, last week @holette was in the hot seat, and delivered unto us all the excellent Cate Le Bon's "Mug Museum", and a mighty fine collection it was too. Thanks to her for the pick, and for flipping the frisbee to the cassoulet-lacking @samsmitter by way of compensation. So here's Sam...

"This is an album I rejected on a previous frisbee-catch about a year ago ... but once I had made my decision I listened to the album on headphones on my walk to work, minus the anxiety that goes with trialling a Listening Club selection, and it sounded great, so I regretted rejecting it. 

When I listen to this while walking around it makes me feel like I’m in a Wes Anderson film or something. I love albums that have an overall feel or atmosphere as a record (sometimes used to break down into “Side 1” and “Side 2” atmosphere), and this definitely has that, despite the slightly odd record company-related story behind its recording and release. 

Disclaimer: if you don’t like guitars you won’t like this record! Hope you enjoy it."

Aces! Direct download mp3 is here (warning - looks like iTunes might show the cover art, apparently!), and the Mixcloud stream (which may reveal the track titles, you have been warned) is here!

Search #listeningclub to see what's going on, and follow @listeningclub for the admin.

Hope to see you tonight at 8pm GMT!

Sunday 12 January 2014

The Listening Club - 12th January 2014

Happy continued new year to you all.

Yes, brr a bit, although not quite as brr as almost exactly a year ago, when I arrived in Amsterdam to be greeted with a seriously impressive coupla months of snow and shivers. Milder now, yes, and milder I hope it remains, but still enjoying the opportunities of the season, open fires, heartwarming stews, fine wines and whiskies, and other (ahem) tried and tested methods of keeping warm. And I have a holiday to look forward to also in a couple of weeks, which may likely be in an internet-free zone, and thus raise some interesting questions regarding #LC management... anyone fancy caretaker-managing for a week or two? Let me know if so... could prove necessary!

(Speaking of necessary things, two weeks hence will also be a #vortex time, so start pitching ideas please folks...)

Anyhoo, last week @cdrose_writer was in the chair, and started the year in fine style by twanging us all into submission with The Legendary Tigerman's guest-packed bonanza "Femina". Big thanks to Chris for the selection, and for sending forward the redoubtable @holette for this week's pick. And here she is...

"A bit witchy.  That’s how I’ve always thought of this artist.  In a good way.  I’ve seen her live and she wore a wizardy cape which confirmed my thinking.  Apparently female wizards are called witches.  Go figure.  

So a bewitching, slightly wonky world is what this artist conjures up to me.  This is the most recent album which I’ve not listened to much as yet but it shares the distinctive song writing, voice and melodies of previous work.  I like how this artist creates different atmospheres from dark to light.  So if the poppier ones to start don’t get you indie dancing don’t worry, it’ll all go off kilter, noisy or hauntingly strange at some point.  You might have heard this artist dueting with others. There’s some obvious musical references in there …but they’re good ‘uns."

Mmmkay. Direct download mp3 is here, and the Mixcloud stream (which may reveal the track titles, you have been warned) is here!

Search #listeningclub to see what's going on, and follow @listeningclub for the admin.

Hope to see you tonight at 8pm GMT!

Sunday 5 January 2014

The Listening Club - 5th January 2014

Happy new calendar period, everyone!

Hope you're doing fine, post-whatever it is you got up to. All is good here in The Dam, everything still in one piece despite the locals attempts to blow it all sky high... see, the few days before New Years is the only time it's legal to buy fireworks here, and NYE is the only day it's legal to let them off, so.... well you can guess what happens. Much boom. So explosive. Plenty dangerous. Yay fun.

So, with 2013 about to shatter into a million flying pieces, what better wave-goodbye could there have been last Sunday than the #festivevortex to soundtrack the destruction? 28 choice selections from the past year were offered up, and a fine, diverse, rather drunken time was had. Big thanks to all who chipped in a track or two!

Now, casting yer minds back, you may well remember @cdrose_writer was left holding the frisbee pre-vortex, and so here he is with the first pick of 2014...

"I came across this record completely by accident, when searching for cover versions of one my favourite songs, knew nothing about the artist, but as soon as I saw it, knew I had to have it.  There are fifteen songs, some originals, some covers, each one featuring a different female singer (hence the album title, I guess...) – some of the singers are known to me, others not: see how many you can spot!  Even though it’s stylistically compact, each song does differ quite a lot, so if you don’t like the one that’s on, hang around and something different will be up in a few minutes..."

Righty-ho. Direct download mp3 is here, and the Mixcloud stream (which may reveal the track titles, you have been warned) is here!

Search #listeningclub to see what's going on, and follow @listeningclub for the admin.

Hope to see you tonight at 8pm GMT!