I read good reviews of the album, and streamed it. I wanted to like it, but it’s not really my bag. No doubting its quality and can see why others like it. Just not for me. LoL.
It'd have to be, we're still waiting on our 'clear' vinyl.. Anyway, apparently it's no 8 in the midweeks, which usually means it'll drop down once Harry Styles etc overtakes with their consistently selling albums, seeing as how I didn't see one in hmv just now .. .. but once the clear vinyls get released, it might just keep the record up there!
Her previous or somewhat 'recent' record, iirc, Sugaring Season, was, to me, imo, more a stronger 'return to form' in melodies, arrangements, lyrics, performances. Or more of what I like about her music. I do hope fwiw if anyone here sort of 'missed that one' it's definitely worth getting. It's not an everyday, everyweek, or everymonth listening for me, but it's got that spook, haunt, mojo, but warmth and appeal about it, that when I do listen to it, it can pull me into its charms, auras, and mysteries, and is a rewarding musical experience.
29 September, 2022. Truck Store. Oxford. Oxford would make a terrific case study for those justifying their ideas/demands to make city centres car-free. The slogan for the campaign - everything must have a slogan these days - could be " XXXX City: Car-Free, Care-Free". Obviously, there would have to be exemptions, so I won't mither on about it, but... To be clear: In nearly 70 years, I've never been late for an appointment, or a flight, or a train, or - well - anything. Never, not once. Even in 1982, when my attendance at my own wedding was threatened by unforeseen calamities- first by a malfunctioning (okay, it actually crashed) aircraft on a bush airstrip, and then by a freak two-day sandstorm which grounded all aircraft out of Khartoum - I still made it to the ceremony by the skin of my teeth involving a circuitous route home via Egypt, on a very dodgy aeroplane, and then passing through several European countries. I don't need to tell you how, even standing in the Registrar's office on the day, the (so far 40 year) union was in jeopardy until my soon-to-be brother-in-law stepped up with the additional 40 pence to pay the licence fee which, unbeknown to us, had increased 2% since we had booked the ceremony seven weeks earlier. That's inflation for you! It isn't like we couldn't afford to pay, but for that day, JoJo and I had decided to behave like Royalty and so we carried not a penny on us; and the registrar flatly refused to accept an IOU. "I need forty pence, in cash, now, before I can marry you," he exclaimed, "make up your minds, you're holding up the schedule!" (It is a story my brother in law has dined out on ever since. He's 87 years old now, by the way, and still refuses to be paid back. I mean, I've even offered to add 40 years of inflation and a bonus but he's stubborn like that.) Oxford traffic, on the other hand, had the last laugh yesterday afternoon as I followed meticulously the journey I had planned and mapped out from Percy's Manor to The Truck Store, on the corner of the Cowley Road and Rectory Road, to rendezvous with the delightful Beth. You could say I should have known better than to expect a journey of 22 miles to take no more than an hour and a half, but, hey, you have to be realistic. It's not a marathon. Quite. I mean, I could've run the distance in that time. If I was a marathon runner. Which I'm not, but you get my drift... To cut a long and boring story short - what do you mean, "Too late, Buster, get on with it!" ?- I arrived at the Thornhill Park and Ride terminal on the A40 east of Oxford at 5:15pm, frankly a little later than I had expected but still with enough time for me to get to Truck Store by the start of the set which was due to begin at 6pm. Depending on which website you believe it is either 15 minutes to the city centre by bus from the Park and Ride or 25 minutes; either way, the bus stop closest to Rectory Road is well before the city centre and the walking time from that stop to the store is four minutes, tops. I should have been there by a quarter to showtime at the latest. That is cutting it fine in my book - I prefer to apply a half hour excess for unforeseen holdups - but still comfortably do-able. The first big mistake I made was not getting off the bus at Oxford Brookes University and legging it from there, because, all of a sudden, as the bus - which had made adequate if somewhat pedestrian progress up to that point - reached the top Headington Hill, the traffic ground to a halt. Total gridlock! Dead snails would've been faster at that point, or a tortoise in hibernation. Ambulances sped by, lights a-flashing, sirens screaming, and chased by police cars making the same noises and fancy lights. Something chaotic was happening outside and the only thing that hadn't stopped was time. People on the bus were nonplussed, swiping and stabbing joyfully at their devices, perhaps even revelling in the additional time they had been awarded by the gridlock to engage further with these earnest and frenzied tasks. Who knows? Maybe the pound had just plummeted below bedrock rates or possibly someone had posted a photo of last night's meal or their new puppy on a social media site beginning with F or T. It must have been riveting stuff, anyway. A couple of young ladies on adjacent seats to mine were discussing how bladdered they'd been last night after work, how rough they felt today, and which one of them fancied Henry more. Or maybe they were talking about Henry Moore, I can't be totally certain, given that I'm a bit (well, a lot actually) deaf these days. Please understand, I don't deliberately listen-in to people's conversations but, my goodness, it's almost impossible not to, especially on crowded buses. Don't people shout these days? And what ever happened to anti-Covid masks? Am I the only person on the planet who thinks they are still worth wearing in crowded enclosed spaces? The clock ticked, each minute that passed seeming like another corkscrew to my heart, with the driver believing it was too dangerous to let me out on Headington Hill. The footpath on this section of the journey, you see, is on the opposite side of the road and, fair enough, he wasn't to know that I'd led a reasonably adventurous life thus far and therefore would have the sense to make sure my way was clear before stepping out into the unknown - or in this case, the side of the road. One of us was willing to take their destiny in their hands but that person was not the one who controlled the doors of the bus. It was four minutes past six when he agreed to let me go, just as I was making preliminary I'm-definitely-about-to-chuck-my-lunch-up noises as we reached the junction with Cherwell Street at the bottom of the hill. Alright, I calculated, so I'm already late, Beth has started without me. Get over it and make a note to allow two hours to get to Oxford next time. Anyway, I ran like the wind - well, more a light breeze, really - and made it to Truck Store at seven minutes past the hour. There were probably 40 to 50 punters already in the store. Several people showed up later than I did which kind of made me feel less anxious about my own tardiness; clearly, the traffic congestion has caught others by surprise, too. Beth was on a stage in the front window and was singing a song, obviously from Weather Alive, playing an electronic keyboard and accompanied by a saxophonist in a folkie Bob Dylan peaked hat who also had a flute about his person. The stage was marginally bigger than my kitchen table which seats six people at a pinch, although frankly you'd have to be friendly, or at least family, to suffer graciously the bumping elbows as you attacked my veggie version of spag bol. And, although it's not particularly important for the purposes of this report, I should say that I only have four dining chairs in any case, all of which I've repaired at one time or another using various metal brackets from Aldi. What I'm trying to say is the Truck Store stage is terrific and (perfectly) tiny. The store, well, it's small by anyone's standards; a bit of a squeeze but it has this friendly, cosy, comfortable feel to it. It struck me that the goods for sale were perhaps 90% vinyl. I'm not really a vinyl person, but it did bring back vivid, decades old, memories of flipping though racks of albums, something that you could do with CDs when they came along but not with the same sense of delightful discovery. (It was impossible with cassettes, wasn't it?) I didn't immediately recognise the song Beth was singing as I walked in and made my way to the rear of the store, despite the fact that I've been listening to Weather Alive a lot since it was released last Friday. I was actually giving it a rest and listening to Superpinkymandy during my journey to Thornhill Park and Ride. I reached for my pen and paper so I could jot down a couple of the lyrics in order to recognize the song but it ended before I got that far. The next song was "Lonely." Everyday life - buses, vans, cars, bikes, pedestrians, electric scooters, dogs on leads - passed by on the Cowley Road outside the window behind Beth and her saxophonist as they played, "You're the hope, you're what is left / When all has emptied and has fled." Anyway, that "next song" turned out to be the last song. It was 6:15pm, and Beth began making her way to the back of the store wielding a silver Sharpie in readiness for the obligatory signing session. Several punters had been taking photos, possibly even videos, on their smart devices during the performance. I don't have a device and I was not inclined to take out my camera, partly because I didn't know whether there had been pre-performance instructions about photography but mostly because in that situation it would have needed to be on automatic flash mode which would have been intrusive to all present. See, it's not all about me... As luck would have it I was standing next to the exact spot where Beth parked herself, ready for the signings. As people lined up and struggled to remove the shrink on their copies of Weather Alive (the advanced purchase of which amounted to the entrance fee to the gig) in readiness for an attack with the Sharpie, I thrust in her direction my CD editions of Sugaring Season and Trailer Park Deluxe which I'd brought with me, just in case, with a "Thanks for the show, even though I was late - Oxford traffic you know. Is it okay for you to sign these before I line up with my copy of the new album?" Her answer was both sympathetic to my plight and positive - what a gracious person she is - and I snagged the first two sigs of the evening. Of course, a silver Sharpie on monochrome and light-soaked CD covers does not show up well, but see if I care! The plan had been to offer her the inside flap of the Sugaring Season sleeve, which is black, but she is quick with that Sharpie - very quick! The Sharpie was a bit dry for the first "B", too. Yes, I know, my photography isn't the best; it's a Nikon but it is many years beyond its useful life. But I'm quite attached to it; it has survived civil wars and coups over many years, and survived being immersed under monsoon waters in Bangladesh twenty years ago so I'm not about to give it up :- I gave thanks to the demure, whip-thin artist in blue jeans, long chunky jumper and Nike plimsolls, and then migrated to the front of the store - it wasn't a long journey, perhaps seven or eight of my strides - to join the back of the queue so that I could pick up the CD that I'd ordered in order to obtain access to the gig that I'd mostly missed. I didn't ask anyone in case it induced greater disappointment, but if the show did start on time at 6pm, and no earlier, then she couldn't have played more than four songs and it was probably more like three in those fifteen minutes. So I probably was in attendance for half the gig, which was lovely, by the way; sparse and vulnerable, concentrated, a little nervous perhaps, but performed with Beth's endearing and enduring smile. It didn't take long for nearly all the punters to receive their reserved LPs and/or CDs at the super-efficient till, and for signatures to be obtained along with brief small talk and an occasional photograph for which Beth temporarily removed her mask. (Obviously she sang without a mask.). Having joined what was almost the back of the queue to obtain my CD I was about third last in line and had a quiet, but brief word with her as she signed my Weather Alive, the silver Sharpie being the perfect tool for this task:- Anyway, I asked her about Superpinkymandy ("Yes, my rag doll," she muttered) and if there were any plans to re-release it. "No, I don't think so," she said. "Please give it some thought," I suggested, putting my hands together in prayer. Her eyes sparkled (perhaps she was smiling behind her mask, perhaps it was a grimace) as I walked away, having totally forgotten to ask her who the saxophone player was. He kind of looked a bit like Alabaster DePlume but I wouldn't swear to it, and he'd gone before I could engage him in any conversation. If it was him than I missed an opportunity to snag his sig. His playing on "Fractals" is beautiful, I think. The event was over, punters and star of the show cleared, by 6:30pm. I'd been in the store for just 23 minutes and it's taken me about three times that long to write it up. I can't believe Beth didn't remember signing my CD edition of Central Reservation in Wolverhampton in 2003, by the way. I mean, I remember her... No one needs to know in any detail how or when I got home, but it did involve walking back up Headington Hill, flagging down a number 400 bus to take me back to the Park and Ride, putting my Weather Alive CD into Elsie's stereo and driving back to Percy's Manor in darkness on clear roads. I didn't get lost once, despite most of the signposts being hidden behind unkempt foliage (why they don't keep the foliage trimmed back from around road signs is one of the great mysteries of my life - we don't all have, or even need SatNav, you know!), and I swear I pulled into the driveway just as "Arms Around A Memory" was coming to a close. Seemed fitting. @villiers terrace : I would join you at Koko on 09 October but it's just too big a venue for me and it seems to be a general admission venue which I think means standing room only. I struggle to remain calm in crowded buildings - more so if people are on their feet. But I'd like to read any report you may be compelled to produce. P.S. It's fantastic Beth included the 2-sided lyrics poster that accompanies the new album. Class:- I know it isn't everyone's cup of tea, but this is a very good record, I think. And I think it'll remain so.
I've been troubled by her voice in recent (ie: this summer) live bits that have slipped out on youtube; she's showing some signifcant degradation, quite apart from how her voice sounded on the album. could be that she's just not used to playing live after so much time, but it's concerning.
I guess that would've been around the time of Daybreaker and Concrete Sky, when they were an item, so to speak. In 2001 they collaborated on a track for an exclusive Uncut Magazine CD.
Difficult to argue with that assessment, Mr. Cat... I really think it is one of those LPs that improves with age, with each listen. The Astral Weeks for the not-so-new millennium, maybe.
That’s a really good comparison. I like the apparent lack of structure that then turns out to be highly structured.
You might be interested in her previous albums, too. I think you'd enjoy Daybreaker, for example, which you can buy for pennies these days. Find the whole thing on her official YT channel:- Q Magazine described it thus, "Tortoise-pace strumming and a crippling shortage of choruses produce only torpor" but you're smart enough to make your own mind up. Come to think of it, it's about time there was a deluxe version of Daybreaker released.
As a side bar, one of the contributors on this album, Alabaster DePlume, put out an excellent album this year called Gold. A wonderful jazz/electronic hybrid that is well worth a listen.
Thanks. The joy of coming to an artist so late is that there’s a whole catalogue to explore. I just hope it’s not a disappointment after this amazing release.
Wouldn't The Other Side of Daybreak serve that purpose? Daybreaker is my favorite album of hers, and the tracks from The Other Side of Daybreak make it that much better.
To a certain extent, but apparently 25 songs were recorded for the album and, if this is true, there may be some missing in action unless they were carried over.
I think you'll find it rewarding, although I would steer clear of the many extended electronica remixes of songs from the earlier records, at least for the time being. This new album has a special atmosphere, I think, not least because it is piano-based. Weirdly - at least for me - there seemed no need to comprehend exactly the lyrics because the sound of voice is integral to the atmosphere. You won't necessarily find that special atmosphere on the previous records but I think the song-writing is strong on all of them. Let's put it this way: You'd be mightily disappointed if you heard Blood On The Tracks for the first time and then started exploring the remaining catalogue by listening to Down In The Groove. Or, similarly, On The Beach followed by The Visitor. I think you'll find that Beth has been more consistent with her (more limited) output. Give Comfort of Strangers a spin, too.
