Bookmarks October

Bookmarks is a monthly series of recommendations, recent addictions and subjects for further study.

My birthday this year delivered a quite remarkable array of releases from artists who helped define what their genres could mean for me. Firstly, The Goal, a minute and a half of poetry from beyond Leonard Cohen‘s grave. He speaks, grim and funny as ever, of “the fall, it began long ago/can’t stop the rain, can’t stop the snow”. Piano, strings and guitar — added posthumously by Leonard’s son Adam — curl around that velvety voice like smoke. There is more to come. I can’t wait.

Even more surprising is the return of Gang Starr, with DJ Premier encasing a verse from the late Guru in a glinting patchwork of a beat, all the more beautiful for the seams you can see. J. Cole guests, apparently his last time in that role; not the worst way to sign off.

Stuart Murdoch and his chums in Belle & Sebastian always sounded like the smartest and most mature 19 – 22-year-olds you’d ever met, so as they spanned their 40s and now 50s, there wasn’t all that far, emotionally, for them to go. For whatever reasons, Did the Day Go Just Like You Wanted? with it’s spiderweb melodies and tales a of boy who’s “a long haired puddle of doubt, but he’s yours” landed for me in a way nothing of their’s has for some time.

JS Ondara is a Kenyan born folkie, obsessed with Americana; his pure, keening voice does not always practically match his emotional ambitions for it, but somehow that adds to the power.

Noel Gallagher‘s genius as a songwriter is writing the loveliest/most difficult melodies that an average singer can join in with. I’ve loved his solo work, as it strips away the bombast of the Oasis years (not that I didn’t love that too), and reveals something vulnerable, even sweet, with those melodic chops completely intact.

You already know I’m not exactly a dispassionate observer of Lucky Ocean‘s. The full album of Hank Williams covers is out and I’ve included my second favourite track, his collab with Tex Perkins, Lost Highway.

I featured, a while back, Durand Jones and The Indications, a fabulous neo-soul group. Nothing has brought me more reliable joy that the playlist they’ve put together of inspirations — it’s up to 30 hours of music now, and I’ve not been bored by a second of it yet. That’s where I found The 5th Dimension’s Together Let’s Find Love, one of those fantastic soul numbers where the beauty and power emanates from the drums and billows out through the horns and strings and voices. This set me off on a “related-aesthetic” trip that netted old favourites from Donny Hathatway, Funkadelic and The Staple Singers.

Brittany Howard‘s solo debut manages that same trick as Prince (not a comparison I make lightly); cutting a swathe through the glorious clutter she surrounds herself with, using those flawless vocal instinct and innate sense of what the funkiest thing to do next would be.

James Holt evokes the same reaction as a shopping trip were you buy yourself all the junk you would have been denied as a child — I would have LOVED his big bright driving pop and Lennonesque vocals as a 14-year-old, but I would have been hording my pocket money for the sad and serious young men I wanted the world to know I loved. Spotify and age has put some of this impulse right.

I absolutely loved Nitty Scott‘s earthy, dirty, poetic 2017 album Creature! Nevertheless, I’m happy to hear her back in a straight RnB setting, showcasing her prodigious skills as a rapper.

I just want it on the record that Mereba, with her slide guitar and programmed beats infused Kinfolk, convinced me of things Old Town Road never quite could.

Finally, The Beatles 50 year anniversary re-release of Abbey Road (enjoy it folks, after next year, we’ll have to wait another decade before we get a rash of Beatle-cash-ins) provided me easy access to a bootleg I’ve loved for a while — Paul’s home demo of Goodbye, written for Mary Hopkins, when the Lennon/McCartney byline basically guaranteed a hit. It’s a nice reminder of what a fine guitarist Paul is, but mainly, the way winsome melodies sighed out of him like breath; if the song isn’t enough evidence, listen to the final 15 seconds: a exquisite sequence that could be the basis of best song someone else would ever have written. He threw it away.