The Listening Club - 24th January 2021

Surprise guest host alert! It is I, @JimMcCauley, stepping in at the last minute as @kleptones is a bit under the weather today. Hope you feel better soon, homes. It's been a while since I last sat in, back when we used to do stuff and go places, and since then Blogger seems to have revamped its UI, so bear with me while I clamber back into the saddle and figure out what buttons to push.

Little reminder that we're back on a Vortex tip this year; next Sunday it's the #weirdjanuaryvortex with @saucer doing the biz; DM him for details on where to send your picks.

Last week @faberfedor was on the decks and twisting the collective melon with his pick of Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention's Freak Out!, which certainly did the job. So thanks to Faber for the pick and for spinning the old frisbaton at me, as a consequence of which I will now address you in italics.

"One of my medium-sized regrets is that I was driving to Gloucestershire to take photographs of water voles on the morning I should have been booking tickets to see tonight's artist live. You can imagine my vicarious joy at seeing assorted friends' photos from outside the venue. Some of them even went twice, the sods.

"The opening number's unmistakable; you're all going to name that tune in one, and I'm sure some of you will quietly seethe along with me at its brace of infuriating grammatical errors. But anyway, this is my other half's favourite of this artist's albums, and she definitely has a point.

"It's the work of an artist who's just started taking full creative control of their output; a noticeably different sound to their previous albums, with lots of pointers towards where they're going next. I've just done one of my occasional listens to their entire back catalogue and it's totally one of the highest points along the way; deliciously dark in places but still reassuringly bonkers. Enjoy!"

Fair enough. Direct download's here, and the stream's just down there:

See you at 8pm GMT!