Tunes To Burn

Well, I checked and it really has been two weeks since the last What I've been Listening To post. Feels more like a few days. I guess time really does fly. I'm mildly determined to keep this feature on track so a couple of weeks is about right for another round.

Of course, that's predicated on my having actually listened to something lately. Which I have. My own stuff. I haven't just been spending most of my time making my own music, I've been listening to it, too. Obsessively.  I even downloaded everything I've been doing to my phone so I could listen to it at work. And as bad as it may sound, I find I like listening to me more than I like listening to almost anyone else.

Still, I have managed to rack up a few good tunes that I had no part in and the upside of the flood turning into a trickle is the quality's consistently high. So there's that. The less satisfactory aspect is a general lack of any kind of theme or throughline other than "Oh, hey, I just heard this and it's pretty spiffy!" But then, not every post has to have some deep subtext. Which is just as well...

Let's have a rummage, anyway. See what's in the bag.

 Cowbella - Bar Italia

It sounds even more like Wire than Elastica used to and that saying plenty.

And wow! That's a very disturbing, very NSFW video. I only just watched it this minute, when I put it in the post. Before, I just started it running and tabbed out and left it on in the background, which is always a risk. I do watch them all before I post them, though.

I kinda want to know what the lyrics are now...  I'm not as good with lyrics as you'd think I would be, being so writery and all. Mostly with lyrics, I hear a few lines and they become the whole song. The rest kinda slips by. In this one it was "You got a lot of friends, got a lot of friends But how many like you?"

Hmm, that's not very enlightening. I do like the idea of a narrative video that doesn't remotely follow the lyrics of the song, though. Is that too smart for its own good?

Alright Alright Alright - Westside Cowboy

These are the people the Glastonbury organizers decided were the best new band in Britain this year. Or the best that applied, anyway. I mean, I don't want to sound old...

Goes some, though, doesn't it? 

POLLYANA - Just Mustard

The Glastonbury new talent competition is open to acts from the UK and Ireland. I can only assume none of the ever-growing number of frighteningly strong Irish bands bothered to send in a demo. It seems like most of the really striking and original stuff I'm hearing comes from that direction just now.

Most of them aren't that new, though, I suppose. Just new to me. I do my best but it's hard to keep up with the flow.

 Jamie Oliver Petrol Station - CMAT

And then there's wilful stubborness. That doesn't help. For reasons it would take a skilled therapist to uncover, I took against CMAT from the moment I saw the name. And it had nothing to do with who or what they might have been because I had no clue. I just really, really didn't like those four letters, in caps, in that order. Like, I really didn't like it. Like you wouldn't like a bug crawling up your arm under your sleeve. Go figure.

I did eventually find out who CMAT is, when she turned up on some festival I was streaming or something. I forget exactly. Still didn't shift the irrational aversion to the name. Then this one started turning up in all my feeds and on YouTube recommends and I wasn't having that either. Wouldn't click through.

Until yesterday, when Stereogum dropped the usual 5 Best Songs of the Week feature and it was on there too. And that's always an extremely reliable tip so I finally cracked and clicked and guess what? It's great! Maybe that'll shift my freakish disinclination. 

Also, I'll append the 'Gum's handy explanation of the title for American readers: "The titular phrase “Jamie Oliver Petrol Station” is sheer gibberish to most Americans. Jamie Oliver is a celebrity chef, petrol is gas, and some gas stations over there sell Jamie Oliver-branded food at their convenience stores."

I once worked with someone who hated Jamie Oliver's face so much he regularly used to claim if he had the chance he'd cut his lips off, so I'd say Ciara doesn't really have that much to apologize for in the very competitiive I Hate Jamie's Face stakes. 

 Sunday Love - Bruce Springsteen

Geez! That was a hard turn! Sorry about that. Hope no-one got whiplash. 

CMAT is famous enough to headline main stages at festivals but she's no Bruce Springsteen when it comes to name recognition. Or, I'm pretty sure, to productivity. Bruce writes and records so many songs he doesn't just have some to spare, he has whole albums of them. Multiple albums.

He's just released another collection from his vaults, the second, and there's a third on the way. This one has seven complete, never-before-heard (Except by invitation.) albums by the Boss. There's a really good review on Stereogum that I recommend to anyone interested in either Bruce himself or the creative urge that might lead to such over-production, an urge with which I can't help but empathize just now.

I only own a handful of Springsteen albums and of those the only one I ever really played much was The River. I'd listen to him doing his Burt Bacharach impression all day long, though. 

Lou Reed - Corey Hanson

As has been obvious for a long time, I have a thing for songs whose titles are, or include, the names of famous people, so this was a gimme. It's a lovely tune, too. Jazz really is coming back, isn't it?

 Murda - Lil Yachty

I put this next, thinking it was going to stem any unwanted slide towards jazz, but damn if it isn't pretty jazzy too. That sample is from Maggie Rogers' Alaska, just to save you the trouble. I never really liked the original, even though I probably should have. I listened to it after I heard this a few days ago, just to remind myself what it sounded like and it's the first part I don't like. The sample's from when it gets good. But then we already knew Lil Yachty has good taste.

Love Is Cruel - Miles Kane

Every time I hear Miles Kane I have to wonder whether Luke Haines has a voodoo doll somewhere with a few strands of Miles' hair poking out of the weave. Not that Miles has a lot of hair to spare, based on this video. 

This is so retro it could almost be a parody. Maybe it is. If you had a voice like Miles', though, would you care? I bloody wouldn't.

 MOONBEANS - Alissic w Au/Ra

And finally, some original work. Not by them, by me. And by "original" I mean something I found for myself without being pointed there by a professional reviewer and also something that's most likely new to you, dear reader. 

How that came about was that I forgot to email myself the lyrics for the song I was working on last night before I went to bed so I couldn't carry on working on it on the laptop. And I was too lazy to get up and switch the desktop back on just to do it so I watched an episode of Mythic Quest (I'm on Season Four now - expect a review here before long.) and then went on YouTube for an hour.

It's all circumstance and serendipity in the end, isn't it? I didn't find a nest of gems but I did turn up a couple of nuggets and this was one. Alissic appears to be fairycore-adjacent although the hyperpop glitching doesn't seem wholly on brand for that. The lyrics and the vocal tone do, though, and she literally has a song called Treants so I'm fairly sure of my ground.

It Went (It Comes And Goes Remix) 

 Cream Flower

Damn, but the first few bars remind me of Go Chic. I really wish there were more Go Chic songs. Go Chic were amazing. Cream Flower are great but they're not Go Chic. I miss Go Chic.

Cherry Blossom Girl - AIR (feat. Charli XCX) 

Always end on a high.

Well, it was either that or Yawn Mower