The Listening Club - 5th July 2020

Greetings folks,

Hope you're all doing okay. Amsterdam has slipped slightly into holiday mode, as the school year finishes and, like clockwork, tons of Dutch families immediately take their summer vacations. Given the global situation it will be interesting to see where they're headed, and also, given the travel rule changes over the past week in the UK, it will also be interesting to see who will soon be heading for us.... feeling very cautious about it all, I must say.

Last week in #LC land, it was me, myself and I, @kleptones in the chair, providing new from old in the shape of Bob Dylan's "Rough And Rowdy Ways", which seemed to go down really rather well indeed. All that remained after that was to sail the frisb across to @Saucer, who is right here with tonight's introduction...

"After five years of listening clubbing it is no easier to pick an album. It is more fascinating now. This time my short list (ha ha) grew to 28 (in this go-round spanning 1968 to 2020, country to breakcore to experimental noise to sludge to NYC, SF, Chicago, and LA rock, to what this is).

Last week's Dylan pick reminded me how much I care about lyrics and lyrical delivery. And my recent binging of Lola Uppochner (Lola Upside Down) reminded me what art feels like. So that was my mood going in.

I started with my new favorite lyricist and singer... who ended up on my SSD as a random discovery (I sometimes like to bounce around Bandcamp with minimal control to see what appears, and that's how I found this). It pulled me in first with the words, even though the nearly surreal sweetness that coated them confused me, at first.

Twenty-seven earnest attempts to find something more entertaining/first-listen-palatable for you led me on a wild chase that led right back to where I started.

I really love this album

It is very, very sweet. But antidote sweet not banal sweet. 

If this doesn't penetrate on first listen, you might want to give it a second chance. And then you might want to buy all her EPs and preorder her next album and harbor a crush. Just saying. I wouldn't judge you.

Oh, drinking club, I suppose I'll recommend a nice Armagnac."

Direct download is here, and the stream's below:


See you tonight at 8pm BST (GMT+1)