The Listening Club – 26th June 2022

Hey there listening chums! @kleptones is at Glastonbury, so you get me, @JimMcCauley, taking care of business this weekend. I haven't seen a lot from Pilton this weekend so far, but my high points have been Confidence Man's set on Friday afternoon, and spotting photos in the Guardian of my pals from the Natural Theatre Company doing their flowerpot thing, which must have been sweaty work. And I was frankly gutted to be living a bit too far from Frome to get over there and nab a ticket for Macca's secret warm-up gig on Thursday.

Anyway, last week @corin_ja was on the decks, delighting the assembled with Minnie Riperton's Come to My Garden, which definitely hit that whistle register. So big thanks to Corin for the pick, and for lobbing the frisbaton at @saucer, who will of course be up next week because...

That's right, it's the more-or-less-annual Live Vortex: 16 live tracks to get you up, down and all around, without the prospect of having to find your way back to a tent in the dark afterwards. Thanks to everyone who lobbed in a track or two; the download's here or you can stream it just down there.

Catch you all at 8PM! (BST!)

The Listening Club - 19th June 2022

Greetings and happy advance solstice!

Hope you're all doing good. Busy busy here in Amsterdam, as the weather bounces between boiling and showering, and inside the house we bounce between suitcase and rucksack, preparing ourselves for yet another Glastonbury - for me this marks the 29th year since my first one in '93, and I've been to about 3/4s of the ones inbetween, which makes me pretty fucking bonkers any way you look at it. Sigh. Still, it's the one place I really can't say no to, dammit, so off we go into the land of suncream and mud once again...

Of course that means that we need someone else to run things here next Sunday, which is also a #vortex week, so let me know in the tweets if you can help out!

Last Sunday we had @SimonLandmine in the chair, hitting an unusually rocktastic note with his pick of Slash's eponymous solo album from 2010, which er, rocked the assembled quite succesfully it seems. Thanks to Simon for the pick, and for sailing the frisb over to @corin_ja who has this to say by way of introduction to tonight's selection...

"Short one from me this week. Something to sink into while you're drifting in-and-out of wakefulness in a warm, sunny meadow, or perhaps besides a pool, a glass of something sparkling and indulgent at your elbow.

I was reflecting on my own tendency to choose white rock guys when people ask me to name my favourite albums, etc. Thought I'd swim against my own unconscious bias by deliberately seeking out something different. This is a record I don't know that well, although the artist is someone I'm very familiar with thanks to a sadly-defunct UK festival of the late 90s and 00s. They've contributed some highly influential music, both as a band-member and a solo performer, but here I thought I'd go back to the beginning and we can discover the record together, pretty much.

#drinkingclub has to be a cocktail of fizz, pink vodka & fresh raspberries. Cheers!"

Reet then. Download's here, stream's below.

See you 8pm BST (GMT+1)

The Listening Club - 12th June 2022

Hey there folks and all that.

Yes, @kleptones back here again, tanned and happy after a Barcelona sojourn. Primavera Sound definitely has a lot going for it musically (Saturday night's wham-bam of Einsturzende Neubauten > Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds > Idles > Squarepusher will take some beating), but shoddy organsation (fixable) and awful over-branding (que sera) made it a bit of an"enjoyed despite" event, instead of an "enjoyed because" event, if you know what I mean. Still, Barcelona remains a grand place, the temps were very bon, and you can't go wrong with that.

Thanks to @JimMcCauley for minding the house in our absence, which saw @IamWahl getting smooth with his pick of David & David's "Boomtown" from 1986, which seemed to trigger some serious genre discussions, from what I can see. Thanks extended for the pick, and for the sail of the frisb across to @SimonLandmine, who has finally decided on his pick, it seems...

"As usual, I had a few ideas for my selection this time around, but one of them gave me second thoughts, and I was undecided between the next two, as one seemed more summery, but the other longer one was possibly better. And then I remembered an event that was on this weekend, and I decided a change of style was required, because me doing the selection this weekend could be some kind of sign. Or something. So I looked further down my 'short' list and this jumped out at me.

What you have here is an album of collaborations, but it shouldn't take some of you too long to identify who the common factor is. They're someone justifiably renowned within their scene, and for a lot more than the act that initially brought them to fame. Due to the range of collaborators there is more variety in this album than is often found in 'solo' albums - this is someone willing to take cues from others and work with them. And at least one of the collaborators was quite a surprise, branching out into a genre that they're not really known for.

I know it may not be a genre that you're all big fans of, but I hope that you'll give it an hour of your Sunday, and hope that you find something to appreciate it in, or can at least play "identify the collaborator". At least it's not Duran Duran covering Public Enemy this time ...

For #DrinkingClub ... it's got to be Jack Daniels, really, but with a variety of mixers, much like this album."

Right then. Download's here in dropbox or google flavour, and the stream's below:

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

The Listening Club – 5th June 2022

Hey there, listening chums! It's @JimMcCauley at your service, while @kleptones (along with @nessiest) is away at Primavera, from where he taunted me on Friday night with a photo of The Armed on stage, damn his eyes. Luckily I haven't had much time to dwell on this as, due to an unexpected turn of events, I now find myself producing a play, which so far is very much like herding cats, something I've had a lot of practice with over the last couple of years. Fun times!

Last week was the can't-believe-we-hadn't-already-done-it #ThemeTuneVortex, which turned out just dandy, so thanks to everyone who contributed tracks and, of course, extra thanks to @akx for gluing them all together. Normal services returns this week with a pick from @IamWahl, who is here to tell you all about it:

"This album first came to my attention out of nowhere and became a repeated listen in its day, that (for me) now represents a certain era. Can’t say it is especially iconic, remotely a renowned classic, or representative “of a generation” but it hangs on as something I can return to that is somehow a comfort. Obviously, this is personal, and it probably won’t be for everyone’s tastes. That said, I hope there is a little bit of something for all to be found here—could be the songwriting or narratives, the range of instrumentation/tonality, the arrangements, the (now all too) familiar production. If you haven’t heard it, you may as well know it is out there; and if you have heard it, but haven’t for a time, perhaps it will be a refreshing and/or satisfying journey to another time in your life.

"For #DrinkingClub there are so many poor beverage choices to be made that might be associated with this music that tomorrow morning could be a bit jangly (Sex On The Beach, Long Island Iced Tea, White Zinfandel, Slippery Nipple, Between The Sheets, Light Beer, Tequila Sunrise, B52, Wine Coolers, Fuzzy Navel, any of the range of drinks made with Blue Curacao…)."

Splendid. Direct download is here, or simply stream below:

See you at 8PM (BST)!