Listening Club - 27th May 2012

Eurovision greetings to you all!

Mixed feelings here over a contest victory decision that showed the Euro-mass expressing preference for wiggle-footed trance-pop over a posse of biscuit-baking octogenarians. Lordy, and indeed Lordi, what has the (euro)world come to?

Meanwhile, back on planet LC last week, @jayesofine stepped up to the turntable and delivered Leslie Winer aka © 's "Witch", which managed the rare feat of silencing quite a few of the LC faithful as they moved into "serious listening" mode, and showing how tough it is to get deep into a record and tweet simultaneously. Another fine choice - Thanks Jaye!

(Note also that, in a wonderful bit of synchronicity, the John Peel archive picked the same album as their "Hidden Gem" of the week at exactly the same time, showing how we, the LC, are firmly in the centre of the retro zeitgeist, if you allow such a thing to exist in your universe.)

Although the tweequency (c) was reduced, wit and wisdom was still in evidence, allowing Jaye to nominate @SamSmitter to be thrown into the spotlight this week. Over to him...

"The album I have chosen for this week comes into the 'neglected artist' category. I don't have an autobiographical tale about how I came to it - I read an article about the artist (it may even have been an obituary) which sounded interesting, and I investigated and ending up buying everything they produced in a sadly truncated career. I wanted to choose something with a different feel and genre from the previous Listening Club selections, all of which I have enjoyed, and some of which I have loved. This is a much older record, made before I was born. I wanted something which I consider to be a great album, but which may not be familiar to everyone. If you don't know the artist, you will probably know at least a couple of the songs on this album in versions by other people.

 

This one is more of a mellow 'downer' of a record than a roller-coaster ride. A single-malt whisky in a darkened room sort of record. As is now customary for Listening Club, it will not be to everyone's taste, but I hope it will be a discovery for one or two. If you know it, I hope you will enjoy the close listen I think it rewards. If it is new to you, relax and enjoy the warm blanket of a great voice, great musicians, and a great songwriter."

Download is here (direct dropbox link), or the album can be streamed online here (via Mixcloud)

Start time, as always, is 8pm BST (GMT+1), search #listeningclub and follow @listeningclub to see what's going on. I'm off to boil in the sun whilst building my mum a new shed. Happy Sunday, and hopefully see you this evening.