Wandering Around Talking To Rainbows

It's the end of the year, and I’ve got time for one last album for this challenge.

In a year when it felt like everyone in my age bracket was obsessed with Oasis going back on tour, the equivalent band for me, Pulp, released a new album and went out on tour. (I was 11 going on 12 when I first heard Disco 2000, it was on a funny shaped sample CD that my dad got as a freebie somewhere, he brought it home, handed it to me and said ‘you’re going to love that one’ and I was hugely annoyed he was right. Different Class was the album that defined my teen years - it rewired something in my brain.) I’m mostly glad I didn’t try and get tickets after all, the surprisingly large number of clips of their Glasgow gig, were up in the gods of the Hydro which is realistically where I’d have ended up and overall if I couldn’t have been down on the floor, I was just as well just watching their ‘surprise’ Glastonbury gig. (It was the 30th anniversary of their classic Glasto performance when they were at the height of their fame.) I really loved both the singles they released from it - I was doing a lot of driving for work, and despite how much 6Music over played them both, I never got sick of either track - and the new bits I heard on the Glasto set so I fully intended to pick up a copy of the album - More. I just never got round to it, until the end of November when I was looking for a pick me up in HMV and spotted a ‘colour’ vinyl edition in the twofer deal - I got Air’s Moon Safari an album I’ve loved for years, but only ever had it ripped from an friend’s copy - and knew that was exactly what I needed.

(And because Pulp absolutely know their audience, particularly for the vinyl edition, there's an insert with both production details and all the lyrics - seriously bands underestimate how much added value having the lyrics provides. Also I got the 'green' vinyl addition and it's just a gorgeous shade of bottle green which makes a gorgeous contrast with the orange on the central label. Just nice simple design. When Jarvis and Candida from the band were interviewed by Jo Whiley after the Glastonbury gig, Candida noted that when they’d all got together to rehearse they’d felt excited to make music together again for the first time in ages and I think you can tell, it really feels like an album made by a band enjoying making music together. I mean they’ve been a band together for longer than my entire life, when they released their breakout album His and Hers in 1994 they’d been going for like 16 years! It’s nice to think they just get back together every so often because it’s still fun to make music together.)

It was a great choice. Got to Have Love and Spike Island are still clearly the stand out tracks - classic Pulp tracks - but listening to it on vinyl, just letting it play while I was doing other things was a great way to let the rest of the album soak into my brain. Tracks I’d probably have skipped over in digital format, or even just on CD for being a bit blah, have settled into my brain and become favourites. It’s such a middle-aged album and I love it, just listening to Jarvis’ wry dead-pan commentary on life and love, that mixture of cynicism and hopefulness that is their trademark, is soothing to me. The stripped back beauty of some tracks versus the lush production of tracks like The Hymn of the North an album that reminds me why I still love this band so much. I was going to pick out my favourite tracks to talk about - Grown ups and Background Noise - but the more I listen to the album the more I fall in love with it all the tracks. It’s not often that one of your favourite bands from your teens gets back together and makes one of their best albums - I’ve been lucky Skunk Anansie came back with a banger in the form of Black Traffic but that was 2013, I think, it doesn’t happen a lot - and I’m so glad they did.

Sometime this summer, I rediscovered my fic writing muse. Which has been great, but has unfortunately also meant that I’ve fallen quite behind on writing up my monthly albums - I have several months of backlog! Fortunately, I have still actually been listening to the albums and noting them down, so I’ve been able to look back at my list and write them up.

First up, we’re all the way back to the summer, for my August album, which was Fable by Ainsley Hamil. (I really thought I’d at least started this post, I definitely remember sitting down in the days after the gig with the album on and the intent to write about it. I suspect I probably started writing it into the ‘create entries’ page and lost the draft.) I mostly know Ainsley Hamil as a Gaelic singer - competed for the Gold Medal at the Mod a couple of time - and this album is split pretty evenly between songs in Gaelic and English, with a Burns number thrown in for good measure. Personally I think if we’re talking traditional Gaelic modes, she’s better suited to puirt-a-beul than the strictures of the Gold Medal - I’ve seen her do puirt live and she’s very good, it’s not easy to keep up that level of articulation at that speed especially not in the middle of a gig! She has such a rich, warm singing voice, it’s a pleasure to listen to her sing, and always so tempting when the album finishes, to just stick it on again for another play through!

Unusually, I was listening to this album extensively because I was going to a gig, rather than going to the gig because I’d been listening to the album a lot. My local art centre hosts a folk music festival in a tent on it’s lawn every summer. (Not in one intense weekend but two bands per session, two sessions a night, five nights a week across two months.) Living near by and being a regular gig go-er, I go to a lot of these sessions, sometimes with friends, sometimes alone, sometimes pre-planned, others spur of the moment because I walked past and thought ‘oh they’re good’ and stayed. The Ainsley Hamil gig was planned fairly far in advance, as a friend texted me just after the programme came out and asked if I fancied it, and as I did and it was a day I was on a helpful shift, we booked it and went. As it was her idea, and I’d agreed on the basis that I remembered what I’d heard of Hamil’s latest album being good, I thought I better swat up beforehand.

(It’s a lovely album, but gosh, live really is her forte, she was such a compelling and warm presence on stage, making her music come alive. In both Gaelic and Scots, her delivery on the album is more precise and probably more technically correct, but live she was so much more natural and felt much less constrained.)

June’s album is Last Summer Effect by Last Summer Effect. This album feels a bit like a cheat, but it is an album that came out last month, and I did have it on heavy rotation for the rest of the month because I liked it. The reason it feels like a cheat is that one of our freelancer’s at work is a sound engineer and worked on it, and the reason I even heard this album is that he dropped the Spotify link in our team group chat the day it came out with a plea to share it about/give it a listen. (By his own admittance they were the band he was in at eighteen, so he might even be playing on it too.) So I stuck it on in the background while making brunch after a night in the pub, to do a colleague a solid on the stats front and ended up really liking the vibe.

It’s kinda…It’s kind of an emo album I think. A bit Hundred Reasons I think, all crunchy guitars and soulful emoting singing. It’s not really my taste in music any more, but twenty years ago it would have been absolutely my jam and I’d have loved this album. (This album came out last month, but the only reason it couldn’t have come out twenty years ago is that the band would have barely been in double digits at that point, but my point stands, it should have come out on Chemical Underground some time between 2005 and 2009 - which is not far off given that the band were officially together between 2010 and 2013!) It feels like stumbling across an album released by a tiny band I saw at a gig when I was twenty, that I saw twice, followed on MySpace and bought a hand-burned EP off the band at the back of the gig. If one of those bands had miraculously got hold of some decent production values, the harmonies and production are pretty lush - Steve does know what he’s about. It sounds like sunny hungover mornings in friends flats after gigs, or big nights out. (The smell of stale sweat, flat beer and other people’s dead cigarettes hanging in the air.) I’m really not sure if there’s actually a market for this that isn’t millennial nostalgia, I probably wouldn’t have listened to it if they weren’t friends of friends, but that could go for a great number of bands I listened to from that actual period of time too. I keep putting it on to listen to while I do other things so nostalgia or not, so clearly present day me rather likes it too.

One of this year's resolutions is to listen to a new-to-me album each month. This came about because when I went to make an end of year music post, not only had I not listened to that many entire albums - I basically got obsessed with two different albums last year at either end of the year, otherwise it was just random songs. I also realised that recently I’ve picked up a tendency to go through phases where I listen to lots of new music and then others when I listen to hardly any. I figured if I gave myself this challenge I’d maybe do it in a more consistent fashion.

( I might need a vinyl icon )

I was doing pretty well with writing until I went back to work - I expected the words to slow down at that point, I didn't expect them to grind to a complete stop! (Well, not completely, I did write 435 words after work the other day, but I've not written a single word more days this week than I have the whole rest of the month put together.) Like, this isn't a bad total, but it was a more impressive one last Sunday when I reached it! Cross your fingers that I have a more mellow week this week than last so I can actually get to finish more things this month.





In more positive news, I'm really into Chapel Roan's current album. Until recently she was more of a pop culture reference I was vaguely aware of than someone I listened to. Occassionally I'd hear a random track by her on the 'youth programme' at the radio station, when I was on the desk, but besides clocking them as solid funky little pop songs I didn't have many feelings about them. (An old roller derby pal has got really into playing electric cello - I didn't even know that was a thing until Patsy started posting her videos, she's really good - and does a cracking cover of Red Wine Supernova.) However, I got earwormed by H.O.T.T.O.G.O the other day, so ended up down a Spotify rabbithole and have pretty much been playing that album on repeat all week. If I don't burn out on it by the end of the month I'm going to have to get my own copy of it, but in the meantime I'm enjoying confusing my spotify wrapped stats while it lasts! Okay so I started writing this, and then after the last shift of my stressful week, I took myself off for a nice lunch and an afternoon in a coffee shop, and on the way detoured into HMV. I came out with this album and the Mogwai album that I watched a documentary about on at the film festival. So yeah. At least I can listen to it as much I like now?

Speaking of music I've been loving recently, last time I had a stressful week and bought myself a cheerup album it was Max Richter from Sleep and it's just the perfect ambient classical album, it's been the background soundtrack of so much of this month's writing. Very soothing. The other album getting high rotation this month has been Björk's Greatest Hits, which I've had for probably a decade and is still a solid listen every time. (I know the definition of a Greatest Hits album is that it should be all hits no misses, but these things are subjective, but this one is pretty much all my favourite Björk tracks - with the exception of the inexplicable absence of her breakout track It's Oh So Quiet.) Oh and I went through to Aberdeen for my annual art and seasonal shopping trip - they always have a better selection of clothes for hunting something nice for the work Xmas night out. (Bottle green cord suit, with waistcoat, very middle aged lesbian of me.) Anyway, the point is that I went to some gigs! I told myself I was fine with not seeing Niteworks one last time - I saw them at their last Ironworks gig before it closed down, which felt a fitting send off for both the venue and the band - but then I was planning to go through to Aberdeen anyway and there were a few tickets left for what was their second last gig of their farewell tour so I decided it was a sign and made the two things line up. I'm glad I went, it was emotional - even if the Ironworks was a better gig, it's a better venue all round, a real loss for Inverness - I even bought a t-shirt! I also went to see Rura the following night in the Tunnels, a venue that I haven't been in, in about 20 years and couldn't have sworn I ever had been, until I walked into the bar and remembered going to the toilets and getting lost for what felt like ages. You still get absolutely no signal in there, but the gig was good.

I am, I must confess, a little bit of a vinyl wanker. I don’t subscribe to the whole ‘oh it’s just a warmer sound, CDs/digital is cold’ stuff, I love my CD collection, I have CDs that I bought when I was 12 that still sound as crisp and clear nearly thirty years later as they did back then. (There is truly very little more disappointing musically than a crap vinyl pressing, especially if they didn’t bother to remaster it for vinyl.) Most of the album’s I own on vinyl fall into one of two categories, classic albums I fell in love with when doing the 50 greatest albums challenge a few years back - there’s just something about listening to an album the way it was designed to be heard, I really loved Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love listening to it on Spotify, but I fell in love with it all over again hearing it on vinyl for the first time, Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On is pretty special on vinyl too - or albums from my teens that I loved but either never owned or just a taped or digital rip of a friend’s copy. I have very few contemporary albums, partly because outside of classical and electronic/ambient/dance music very few are actually mixed specifically for vinyl so unless you’ve got a high end turntable - I have a wee portable thing - it sounds a bit rubbish and also there are too many tracks so it’s even harder than usual for me to drop the needle in the correct place if I’m trying to get a specific track. I tend towards albums I already know I love almost every track so I can just listen straight through.
( I wasn't always a vinyl fangirl )

Your main fandom of the year?

*hollow laughing*

Your favourite film you watched this year?

A solid showing this year with 28 films I hadn't seen before, not as good as the last few years, but not bad overall. I did both the Berlin and Inverness film festivals so there were a LOT of film festival fare for good and ill. Most of the films I really loved this year were actually from the last century. I finally saw Rashoman which reminded me why it's still a classic, the best film I saw in Berlin was a restoration of A Women of Paris a pre-code silent movie from 1923, and there was a glorious Powell & Pressburger double feature at the Inverness film festival. I read a book to Takeshi Kitano's work and as a result ended up watching the brilliantly strange Dolls. In terms of current films, probably Poor Things an unabashedly weird adaptation of the Alasdair Gray novel of the same name, or Asteroid City a delightfully off the wall Wes Anderson film. Both were cracking good cinema experiences, though I dunno how much they'd be films I'd watch again and again.

Your favourite book read this year?

Oh, easily, The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern, definitely the kind of book that reminds you why you love books. I loved it in it's own right, but also for re-opening the part of my brain that loves books. I only read 23 books last year, so it wasn't a packed field. I read a decent amount of non-fiction but that was more interesting and informative than it was things to love.

Your favourite artists to listen to this year?
1. Public Service Broadcasting - I got their new album Bright Magic on vinyl at the tail end of last year, after seeing them live, and it came with a digital mp3 version that I put on my phone when my iPod finally kicked the bucket. I listened to Blue Heaven and Gib mir das Licht pretty much on repeat when I was travelling. (It's a good album, but one that really benefits from a good set of headphones/speakers, so sonically dense.)
2. Yo-Yo Ma - his Bach cello quartets were the soundtrack to so much writing this year, I bought the EP of this early 2022, but for some reason it's just been this year's go-to background listening.
3. Meghan Trainor - no I don't understand it. I actively disliked Mother when it came out, that little Mr Sandman sample did my head in. Yet somehow it grew on me this year. Probably partly due to having been on Spotify's 'Spring Clean' playlist which I listened to A LOT this year which meant there was a lot of recent pop on my spotify wrapped this year. Random tracks by Lizzo, P!nk, Maisie Peters, Holly Humberstone and Self Esteem. But the only artist from it I bought more than one tune by was her - somehow Mother and Made You Look made it into solid positions on my soundtrack of the year.
4. Speaking of random pop that Spotify thinks I'm into, I really liked Taylor Swift's latest offering Midnights - the last album of hers I was that into was 1989 she isn't always my jam, but when she is, she really is - in June I gave up and bought it on CD but apparently I'd thoroughly skewed my stats for the year already
5. A toss up between Duncan Chisholm and Su-a Lee, who both realeased absolutely cracking folk albums at the tale end of last year that I've had on heavy rotation for pretty much the entirity of 2023. Probably Su-A wins out as I've seen her live, and I'm going to see her do the whole album - with all it's collaborators - live later this month.

Favourite TV show of the year?
I really, couldn't pick anything other than The Mandalorian because whatever issues I had with it's third season, I watched three - essentially four - seasons of it, when I was bouncing off pretty much everything else in an episode or less.

Your favourite game of the year?
Does Duolingo count? I didn't play anything else this year to any great extent.

Favourite DW comm of the year?
Toss up between inkingitout and fic_rush which between them kept me writing through what has been hands down my worst year for writing in at least a decade.

Your best new fandom discovery of the year?
Oh I was really enjoying listening along to Re: Dracula, just a delightful take on an old classic. (I read the book when I was about 13 or 14 and honestly this might be both my favourite and the most true to the spirit of the original adaptation I've encountered.) I fell behind due to work nonsense and haven't caught up again. I do love the reading classic literature collectively in installments genre, even though I don't generally take part, it's a delightful fandom phenomena.

Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year?
My inablity to write fic? (less than 2000 words all year) My inability to watch things that I'm pretty certain I'd love?

Favourite characters of the year?
Oh easy, Dinn and Grogu. Just adorable found family vibes. I was definitely watching that show for their developing parental relationship. That and the space sword fights and battles. (It's not sci-fi, it's epic fantasy in a sci-fi hat.)

Honorable mention to Harley Quinn who I love dearly and consistantly.

The media you haven't tried yet, but want to?
I've got a big blanket that I need to finish the border on. And I've made a pile of both DVDs I haven't got round to watching and audio dramas I haven't got round to listening to, depdending on which mood strikes me. Otherwise, I'm going to try and get hold of the Murderbot books as audio books and try them.

Your biggest fannish anticipations for the coming year?

I'd just like to be excited about any form of media again. I don't care what kind. Horror movies, audio dramas, K-dramas, silent movies, film noirs, sci-fi novellas. Anything. I'd just like to be excited about something. It was so nice to be excited about The Mandalorian and squee about Grogu with my work buddies. I'm so tired of seeing trailers and tumblr squee and not being able to translate that interest into actually watching things.