The Listening Club - 31st July 2022

Greetings,

Hope you're all doing okay. Bit of a grim dark grey day here in Amsterdam, humid as hell too, so I have the weird combination of both fans and lights on. Que sera, I guess, although it's been a successful day of very tedious administrative dealings with government entities and phone companies, so I'm feeling very pleased with myself, which makes a change all round...

Last Sunday chez #LC we had @holette in the chair, getting motorik with her pick of "Anaphora" by Mood Taeg, which succeded on all fronts it seems. Many thanks to Sarah for the pick, and for sailing the frisb over to @zensolo who has an extra week to ponder their pick, because...

...of course it's the end of the month, and that means vooooortexxx, this time a pretty self explanitary #heatwavevortex (apologies to any Antipodean readers, who would probably prefer the inverse, but hey, that's kinda the problem, innit?). Anyhoo, our man on the spot, @Saucer, has been gathering tunes all week and has this to say by way of introduction...

"Most of these songs about heat were written using it as a metaphor for libido or emotion, so it's an interesting twist to listen to them through the lens of climate disaster on the macro level and some very unpleasant (and sometimes very dangerious) days on a personal level. Thanks, all, for the privilege of playing with your awesome picks. Enjoy!"

Download is here, stream's below:

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

The Listening Club - 24th July 2022

Greetings folks,

Hope you're all doing okay. Nearly the end of July already, blimey, where does the time go? Still toasty here in Amsterdam, not quite boil in the bag levels like last week, but I've still got the cat's "cool mat" keeping my feet from overheating as I type (cat is outside, he's decided he loves the temps). So it goes.

Speaking of what goes, it's nearly the end of the month, so I figure that means a #vortex. I was awol last Sunday in Utrecht eating Afghan food and then watching Joe Jackson, so not sure if there was a theme decided, but sure we'll sort it out in the tweets tonight, eh?

Last Sunday, whilst I was enjoying my concert, the #LC was enjoying @wojsvenwoj's selection of Sudan Archives' "Athena" which went down well it seems. Thanks to Woj for the pick and for sailing the frisb over to @Holette, who's here with this to say...

"I thought I'd choose tonight's selection as it is obviously indebted to a genre I don't think I've heard much of on Listening Club. The originators of this experimental genre from the late 60s and early 70s have had a huge influence on some of the records I love.

This album only came out last year, created, very much in the spirit of the genre, by a collective of artists and musicians spanning Scotland, Shanghai and, inevitably, Düsseldorf. I've been enjoying a bit of time with the music and I hope you do too.

Drinking club: Perhaps a schnapps or two."

Right then, download's here, stream's below: 

See you 8pm BST (GMT+1)

The Listening Club - 17th July 2022

Greetings,

Hope you're all doing okay. Bit scorchio on this side of the planet right now, which is more than a little alarming. Here in Amsterdam we're only going to get a couple of days of mega heat (well, this time round anyway), which is a relief, and not until next week, which is also a relief as we're off out tonight to see Joe Jackson in Utrecht, so yes, tonight you have both me and our erstwhile selectionist absent, which may well be interesting...

Last Sunday we had @Andrew_Oleksiuk in the chair, dealing out a decidely quirky slice of American twang in the shape of The Meat Puppets' (possibly weather-appropriate) "Up On The Sun", which went down very well indeed so it seemed. Thanks to Andrew for the pick, and for flipping the frisb across to @wojsvenwoj, who had this to say before sloping off elsewhere....

"Like most of you I imagine, I always have a few albums in the back pocket that are potential picks for Listening Club. Oddly enough though, this was not one of them even though it really caught my ear when it came out a few years ago. 

That artist has a new record coming out later this year which, as I mentioned on Twitter earlier this week, I thought was already released and had been thinking it would be fun to do a first listen to with all y'all...but alas, that was not to be.

So, I took all the back pocket albums, added the last album by the mystery artist, queued them up to listen to on Friday evening's drive out of town, and, by gum, that was the one that tickled my fancy most.

I know that's a bunch of words about the process instead of the music but, well, sometimes that how it goes. I will say this though: it's one of those albums that both Stereogum and I agree on. 

I'll try to check in sometime during the appointed hour but, either way, enjoy!"

Right then, download's here, and the stream's below:

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

The Listening Club - 10th July 2022

Greetings folks,

Hope you're all doing okay. Feeling a little humdrum here, if I'm honest, now that the planning and activities of the last month or so have subsided, it's time to, well, try and find something else to get excited about, I guess... and make some damn hay whilst the sun thinks about coming back out, heh.

Last Sunday we had @saucer in the chair, piling on the noise and atmospherics with their pick of "A Quiet - Earthquake Style" by the bi-lingually puntastic La Morte Young, which had the assembled oohing and aahing like the auditory firework display it was. Thanks to Mr. S for the pick, and for sailing the frisb over to @Andrew_Oleksiuk, who's right here with tonight's intro...

This album slept deeply in the vinyl LP collection up until recently. I hadn’t played or heard it in decades and when I did it blew me away. Writhing in nostalgia (for me) and yet still fresh as morning biscuits, the band was a staple of the college rock scene in the US in the 80s and influenced many. The band’s illicit intoxicant-fueled touring habits eventually backfired, though they reunited and carried on after some tragic personnel pyrotechnics over the years. This album is among their earliest. Nearly a decade later they would break out into the nascent alternative space in the early 90s. Includes bonus tracks not on the original album. 

Although you may spell vibes with a “V”, I say enjoy the wibes of the hour. We all need some."

Right then, download's here, stream's below:

See you at 8pm BST tonight!

The Listening Club - 3rd July 2022

Greetings folks,

Hope you're all doing good. Yep, @kleptones here again, back from the fields of Worthy Farm and pretty much recovered from what was most definitely a very, very good Glastonbury indeed. Weather gods were on our side (phew!) and the collective mood was wholeheartedly celebratory and kind from start to finish (understandable as everyone had been waiting three years for this to happen), which made the whole thing go with an almighty swing. Fun to play a few bar DJ sets too, especially whilst drinking some fine cornish ales, and catching up with a whole ton of friends and acquaintances, none of whom I'd seen since pre-pandemic times, if not longer (our last Glastonbury was 2017, which seems decades ago now....). A well worthwhile escapade indeed.

Back here in #LC-land, major thanks go out to @JimMcCauley for minding the store and taking care of the annual #livevortex, and also gracias to everyone who chipped in a track or two. Checking the notes left here, we now find @saucer waving the frisb with this to say...

"One of the many things this wonderful little club teaches me is to pause, calm down, and trust my musical friends to listen along with me to picks I'm very unsure about in terms of whether anyone else might like them. For example, when I picked Jenny O. Or Horse Lords. Or a 1961 original cast (poor-quality) recording of a biographical musical called King Kong.

This pick? Thank you in advance, I'm just going with it, and I do hope you find it as engrossing as I do.

If you're in the mood for something cozy or danceable or cheery, well, I expect track one will dash that posthaste. Then again, maybe this music is all those things."

Right then. Download's here, stream's below:

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

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)