Reviews by ikejiri

Crosby, Stills & Nash
I was relatively little late to this album, but as a sunshine dappled, Laurel Canyon, beautifully harmonised, country-flecked, melodic LA folk-rock it's hard to beat.

The start of the album is particularly good, with the superb Suite: Judy Blue Eyes, the joyful Marrakesh Express and the hymnal, hushed Guinnevere. You Don’t Have to Cry is also great, it might be relatively slight compared to some of the songs, but it's a lovely harmony rich ditty, and Pre-Road Downs is the sort of effortless mid temp folk rock they excel at.

The second side also starts with a cracker, Wooden Ships, probably my favorite song of theirs, taking in some Down By The River vibes (although these were released at similar times) and marrying it to some kind of psychedelic space story. Lady of the Island might be my only dip on the album, it feels like Graham Nash has a mood but is searching for a melody and it never quite satisfies, but luckily its followed by the superb Helplessly Hoping and the moody Long Time Gone and enjoyably bouncy 49 Byes, a typically Stephen Stills song.

It’s a 5 - it may not be the most groundbreaking album, but for sunshiney late 60s hippie folk rock it's one of the best.
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Playlist submission: Wooden Ships

The Marshall Mathers LP
It’s easy to forget what an impact Eminem had, and listening to this it definitely captures that specific late 90s MTV-Shock-Reality-Celebrity cultural moment in a way other hip hop stars didn’t - for the very obvious skin coloured reason.

Often his comedic instincts are sharp, and when aligned with his dark horror influenced OTT style, his obvious technical skill and Dr Dre’s production and ear for a hook it’s very good. Kill You, Stan, The Way I Am, The Real Slim Shady, I’m Back, Marshall Mathers are all very strong. And in particular the triumvirate of Stan, The Way I Am and The Real Slim Shady are superb; excellent storytelling, hooks, production and delivery wrapped up in an OTT mix of melodramatic fun and emotional, confessional earnestness, baiting parental and media led hypocrisy, and studded with brilliant lines.
But too often the humour slips into boring crassness, and his reliance on shock value, especially the casual homophobia that threads through several tracks, has aged poorly, reading today as more mean-spirited edge lordery than subversion. And the problem is that the album's high points are surrounded by a considerable amount of filler. At 18 tracks, with too many skits, the runtime stretches the concept thin, diluting the emotional and artistic punch of the good songs.
Ultimately it feels like a mix of brilliance and a lack of editing. Undeniable peaks, but with a decent amount of flaws. Think it ends up at a high 3.
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Playlist submission: The Real Slim Shady

Brilliant Corners
Not my favourite jazz album we’ve had, but far from my least favourite.

When the sax and trumpets drop out around 3 minutes in on Brilliant Corners and it’s a passage of his brilliant piano playing shifting tempo and harmony it’s superb. And while the quality of the horn playing is obviously great, there’s a tone to how it’s recorded on this record, like it’s slightly distorted and tinny and scratchy, that I find a bit distracting at best and rather irritating at worst.

It mainly follows that similar pattern; some great passages, excellent piano playing, particularly when the horns drop out and it’s just piano, bass and drums (eg around 9 mins on Bar-Lue Bolivar Ba-Lues-Are), skilled but distracting horns and slight sense of meandering around a composition.

The Celesta on Pannonical varies this slightly, but again the horns end up taking away from the whole a little and Bemsha Swing has a great groove at least, but I Surrender, Dear is my favourite track, eschewing horns and focussing on the piano.

I think it's a solid 3 - I didn’t connect with it as much as others, but I’d be happy giving it more listens.
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Playlist submission: I Surrender, Dear

I’ve Got a Tiger by the Tail
I really like Buck Owen’s voice - it’s very country, but it has a pleasingly laconic drawl to it. And I really like this album as 30 minutes at the zenith of the mid 60s Bakersfield sound, with the twanging Tele, shuffling rockabilly/rock’n’roll beat and a lot of very catchy songs that would become standards, oscillating between toe tappers and maudlin country sadness. I’ve Got a Tiger by the Tail, Let the Sad Times Roll On, If You Fall Out of Love With Me, Fallin’ for You, We’re Gonna Let the Good Times Roll, Streets of Laredo, Cryin’ Time and the cover of Memphis are all great songs, but I actually liked all of it.

It's hard to beat this an example of this particular type of music at a particular time, so I think it just edges into a 4, and I’ll definitely comeback
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Playlist submission: Streets of Laredo

Roger the Engineer
In general I liked the garage rock, rough and abrasive guitar sound to this, feeling a bit ahead of its time for 1966, and that proto punk-ish energy helps push through what is in truth a rather mixed bag of songs, rather messily recorded.

I’ve never found Jeff Beck to be a particularly compelling guitar player, even though I can appreciate his skill, but some of the playing on here is the most interesting of his of his I’ve heard I think, when he eschews bluesiness and boogies for a more discordant and psych sound, particularly on the non original bonus song Happening Ten Years Time Ago and Under Over Sideways Down.

Alongside Under Over Sideways Down, I liked the folksy I Can’t Make Your Way, the groovily mid 60s Hot House of Omagarashid, the psychedelic drone of Turn into Earth and the Kinksian Ever Since The World Began, but the remainder tend to fall into rather generic mid 60s blues boogies, despite the garagey guitars and the occasional interesting bass line or instrumental passages, like Lost Women.

I enjoyed it, but there’s probably not a great deal to return to so I’ll go for a high 2.
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Playlist submission: Under Over Sideways Down

Lets Get It On
This is sex music, these are sex people.

I’ve oscillated between 3 and 4 on this quite a bit. The title track is brilliant of course, I like how the theme re-emerges throughout, his voice is expectedly superb and there are some nice rhythmic, percussive elements, particularly on the very good Please Don’t Stay and on Come Get To This and Distant Lover.

But on the other hand, while the overall quality is pretty high, some songs feel a little too meandering in comparison to the stronger songs - If I Should Die Tonight, the aforementioned Distant Lover, You Sure Love to Ball all have a tendency to slip by and not stick as well in the memory. And like Here, My Dear was thematically quite one note, this also rather labours the point that Marvin is very very horny.

I’ll stay with a high 3 - some great highs, its nicely brief and I like it, but it doesn’t quite get to a 4.
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Playlist submission: Let’s Get it On

Unhalfbricking
Fairport Convention are a bit of a gap in my musical knowledge, so I was looking forward to this.

I enjoyed it upon first listen, but then I found myself absolutely loving it on the second listen, and on subsequent goes.

Genesis Hall has a brilliant, slightly discordant, folk-psych guitar intro before Sandy Denny’s fantastic voice comes in. Definitely a grower but an excellent song. Si Tu Dois Partir unlocks a hitherto gypsy-french quality to the original, and is all the better for it.

Autopsy is a lovely jazzy, folky, bluesy number and Cajun Women carries a fair degree of Dylanism, no surprise considering the Dylan covers on the album (and the expanded edition), like Million Dollar Bash, which although not necessarily my favourite Basement Tapes song, has a nice degree of roughshod barroom charm and Percy’s Song, which suits them brilliantly with its Gaelic folk lilt, a great track.

But the two best songs are A Sailor’s Life, a superbly hypnotic version of the song, combining 1969 superior psych-blues-rock with some old fashioned folky creepiness and atmosphere, and the fantastic Who Knows Where The Time Goes, a beautiful melody sung beautifully, ruminative and contemplative as it leisurely flows by, augmented by some lovely guitar and bass playing.

It’s no doubt a little uneven in places, but it’s completely charming, the rough around the edges feel giving it real character and moments of beauty, and it has Who Knows Where The Time Goes so it makes it to 5.
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Playlist submission: Who Knows Where The Time Goes

Bert Jansch
I’ve never listened to this, and I only really know Angie and maybe Needle of Death.

But it is as much as I expected, i.e. superb. Occasionally, but charmingly, it's a little rough around the edges, but over the course of 40 minutes it's a brilliant, moving and hypnotic album of stellar blues and jazz tinged folk guitar playing.

The fact it was recorded in the producer’s house only really adds to its appeal, giving it an intimate, but loose feel, as though he is actually performing just for you.

Angie of course stands out, as do many of the instrumentals, Smokey River, Veronica, Alice’s Wonderland and Casbah in particular, where his superlative guitar playing really shines, but there are also fantastic songs throughout; Oh How Your Love is Strong, Needle of Death, Rambling’s Gonna Be the Death of Me, Running From Home.

Although he doesn’t necessarily have the greatest voice, it is very characterful with a lovely folky-hushed intimate timbre to it, and it complements the guitar playing and dark tinged lyrics extremely well.

Glad the list finally prompted me to listen to this. It may not be the greatest album, but his playing and the charm of the whole thing pushes it to a 5.
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Playlist submission: Angie is superb, but for some reason I’ve heard it many times, so I’ll go with Oh How Your Love is Strong

The Madcap Laughs
This is one of those albums and artists where it's tricky to separate the music from the myth and legacy, but on a pure musical level I struggled to get into this beyond a few songs.

Terrapin is great, the funereal tempo and slide are lovely, and I quite liked the off kilterness of Dark Globe, No Good Trying is a nice bit of droning psych and the organ on Long Gone is excellent. But outside that it all kind of merged into a pot of similarly tempoed, similarly strummed songs, with similar melodies.

A bit of a shame as I was quite looking forward to hearing it, but ultimately I didn’t really connect with it, and I can’t think I’ll revisit, so I’ll go with a 2.
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Playlist submission: Terrapin

Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)
This is undoubtedly a superb album, and an excellent contrast to the smooth edged and polished sound of The Chronic. On here the sound is gritty with deliberate rough edges and distortion in the sampling and production, suiting the whole group's harsh and jagged delivery, as well as the overall foreboding tone to it, the whole feeling like an unsettling, eerie film.

Although it covers some of the same street violence as many early 90s hip hop albums, their imaginative eye for humour, absurdity and crassness means they seem to come at it from a completely different angle, their jokes and nightmarish observations all being filtered through comics, cartoons and kung fu movies to make something that sounds and feels unique.

And there are just a lot of great songs on the album; Bring da Ruckus, Wu-Tang: 7th Chamber, Can It All Be So Simple (that bass sound), Da Mystery of Chessboxin’, Wu-Tang Ain’ Nothing ta F’ Wit, C.R.E.A.M. Method Man, Protect ya Neck and Tearz. That’s a great hit rate.

Of the group, Method Man, with his smoky, instantly recognisable tone really stands out, his knack for interpolating melody into his rapping is superb, exemplified by the song Method Man, with its references to Hall and Oates, Come Together and the Stones making a brilliantly hooky track, even with the amusingly OTT and tongue in cheek torture intro.

ODB of course stands out too with his unique voice, I love his verses on Shame on a N**** and Da Mystery of Chessboxin’ but they are all distinctive in their own way. I’ve always enjoyed GZA’s focus on non standard hip hop themes, and the combination of Ghostface Killah’s forcefulness and Raekwon’s stories.

But if Method Man’s rapping stands out then, of course, so does The RZA’s production. Sparse, harsh, heavy, but with a light touch, particularly with the judicious use of mainly jazz and soul samples, particularly piano and strings as hooks and embellishments. You can hear the influence of his sound on Illmatic the following year, often using the same hook of repeating loops of 2 or 3 notes. I like how he also brings in some of the piano sample from C.R.E.A.M. in and out throughout and also uses samples of two different versions of The Way We Were on Tearz and Can It All Be So Simple. And he gives the whole thing a strain eerie cinematic weirdness, running just beneath the surface.

It's right up there with Illmatic as my favourite hip hop album, a stone cold 5.
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Playlist submission: Method Man

The Village Green Preservation Society
I fully jumped on the wagon when this became a rediscovered hidden gem 10 or 20 years ago, and I still think it’s superb, and fully deserving of its critical reappraisal.

While sounding very Kinks-ian, it's stylistically very eclectic, taking in rock, psychedelic, musichall, pop, folk, baroque and blues, and using some interesting instrumentation to wrap it up with a classical/rock opera feel.

Among the harpsichords, strings, brass and mellotrons there is some characteristic Dave Davies guitar playing, but Pete Quaife’s bass playing is noticeably good, with some very Macca-esque melodic playing, particularly as he uses the same device of plugging his Rick directly in to the mixing desk.

Song wise it’s uniformly great too, with some fantastic melodies and tunes. Animal Farm in particular I love, the pastoral tinge to it is just lovely, and the title track is great of course. I love Do You Remember Walter with its distant horns in the left channel, and Johnny Thunder carries a great energetic wistfulness. Big Sky is also superb, combining some great Dave Davies playing with some ethereal Sgt Pepper-esque passages and more musichall sections. Village Green’s baroque pop with a sinister feel, married to the pastoral, melancholic description of a fictionalised past is a great combination. Wicked Annabella has more great guitar and bass, and I love the creepiness of the riff, echoing the witchy theme.

In fact I don’t think there’s a dud on the album, Phenomenal Cat might be a little throwaway but its is still interesting with a great organ coda, and the Calypso-isms of Monica might invoke Mr Moonlight too closely but I like the Ayay Ayay part, and thematically and lyrically they more than make up for any shortcomings.

And thematically of course is where it also excels, and you can easily see why it's such a touchstone for later bands, particularly and obviously Blur, with its mix of pen portraits and laments for ideas of Englishness. While a lot of the album focuses on nostalgia, I don’t necessarily feel it’s welded to the past he describes, it feels more like Ray Davies wants to find a way to move forward without throwing away the past, but without getting weighed down and stuck in a retrospective cul de sac. And the recurring reference to taking pictures is a really interesting and cleverly used motif, playing with the idea of wanting to record a moment, but what you actually get isn’t real, and is just as easily forgotten and disposed of.

It does sound a little rough round the edges production wise, like a lot of their albums. Often that works for them and the spiky tension between the brothers, but in the hands of a more technically skilled producer it feels like on this album sound could have married even more cohesively with the overall concept.

But that is a minor gripe really, it’s a superb album, and completely deserving of its reputation.
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Playlist submission: Animal Farm

Be
I didn’t know Kanye produced this until after I’d listened for the first time, even though his voice is prominent throughout. Listening through again, though, it’s clear that it's his production. It's very mid-2000s Kanye a la The College Dropout but with a greater jazz and soul touch. Samples and interpolations are skillfully deployed, and the glossy, polished sheen is great, exemplified by the superb sound and feel of Be (Intro)

However I find Common to be a slightly dichotic presence, on the one hand I like his restrained and calm delivery, echoing the thoughtfulness of the words and themes (even though does slip into rather trite earnestness at times), but on the other hand I don’t find him particularly compelling, it often seems a bit flat, missing a bit of flair and zip.

The production and those two sides to him combine to make a very listenable album that I will likely listen to again, even though I never quite felt like I fully engaged with it, and there are better examples of this type of album. All that together makes it a 3
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Playlist submission: Testify

Debut
There are times on this when the early 90’s house influences pushes it into dated territory, like There’s More To Life Than This or the synth bass on Crying, but outside that there are some excellent left of centre dance inflected art-pop songs on here.

The more well known songs I was aware of before listening to this remain great, namely Venus as a Boy, Big Time Sensuality and Violently Happy. Big Time Sensuality in particular is an absolute banger.

Human Behaviour is also excellent, catchy but tense, with a slight Industrial Zone feel to it, and a brilliant vocal. Like Someone In Love feels a bit like a foreshadowing of something off Vespertine, and its iciness is a nice change from the electronic beats preceding it. One Day is superb, a great pulsing track that feels a bit like Tricky or Massive Attack. Aeroplane is also great, with the Latin feel to the percussion and the slightly discordant horns, which have a feel of Optmistic by Radiohead. The Anchor Song has a similar later Radiohead feel and I love it’s sparseness and poignancy, a great track.

It’s definitely more accessible than some of Bjork’s other albums, but it still has that experimental, off kilter sense to it, especially with songs like One Day and The Anchor Song. It is a little dated in places and a couple of songs I wasn’t as keen on, but its a solid to high 4.
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Playlist submission: Big Time Sensuality

If You’re Feeling Sinister
I feel similarly about this as I did Tigermilk, although I think I prefer that album, as it had a little more variation than this, which does stick to a quite narrow template musically.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as I do find their whimsical strumminess with bite beneath the sweetness very enjoyable. As with Tigermilk there are large dollops of Nick Drake in his vocal tone and style, and there seems to be quite a bit of Nico in there too.

It perhaps lacks a real stand out song, but there is some great stuff; Stars of Track and Field, Me and the Major with its harmonica, the Victoria sounding Like Dylan in the Movies, the stately and pretty The Fox in the Snow, the title track, punctuated by some lovely country touches and a great melody, the vaguely forlorn The Boy Done Wrong and it’s nicely toned descending bass, and Judy and the Dream of Horses balance of sunny melody and bittersweet lyrics.

Although I think it's probably a touch below Tigermilk, it's still a 4, it’s a lovely album.
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Playlist submission: The Fox in the Snow

Neon Bible
I never really caught the Arcade Fire hype train back when this came out, and have never really given them a proper listen.

Although I’m not totally enthused by it, I think I’ve missed out a little, as I definitely liked it. It is definitely of an ilk with that late 00s US indie sound I’m not keen on, but it certainly has more melodic and instrumental flair than a lot of that music, although there is still a distinct tang of the self importance and self seriousness that informs a lot of that music.

I like Black Mirror as a melodramatic opener, the piano riff strings are great. A few songs reminded me of Echo and the Bunnymen, Keep the Car Running and The Well and the Lighthouse in particular. There’s definite echoes of Bowie here and there too. And I very much liked the Springsteen feel to Intervention and (Antichrist Television Blues), and I enjoyed Ocean of Noise and No Cars Go with its little video game synth.

Ultimately I think this is a solid 3, there’s a fair bit that drags and feels a bit pedestrian, but there’s also just about enough intriguing stuff happening to make me want to come back further down the line and re-evaluate.
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Playlist submission: (Antichrist Television Blues)

The Chronic
I love the sound of this, the production is so good, the G-Funk laid back bass and whining noises are all fantastic, and there are superbly memorable hooks all over it, mainly Snoop Dogg’s viz the Bow Wow Wows on Fuck wit Dre Day

Lyrically it’s interesting how often they refer to their dicks, and you have to come to the conclusion that they either have massive dongs, or very very small dongs to justify the obsession, and for Dre to record himself pretending to be shagging.

There is also a lot of focus on Ice Cube, Eazy-E and Jerry Heller, obviously fresh off the rancorous end of NWA, which is fine, but I think they make their points well enough and early enough that I’m not sure there’s much more to be drawn from that well. But by golly they give it a good go.

Outside of that there’s the other usual focus on gangsta rap tropes, and although they do labour the point somewhat, Snoop’s delivery and ear for a vocal hook helps carry it through. And I do genuinely like Deez Nuts.

Despite much of the lyrical content, I do think this is a great record. I love the polished west coast sound, and there are some excellent samples and interpolations, I particularly like using Donny Hathaway on Ghetto Boy, and there’s the obligatory When the Levee Breaks on, and I like the Funkadelic of XXX.

I think that all adds up to a 4.
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Playlist submission: Let Me Ride

The Rolling Stones
It’s not brilliantly recorded, the covers are (from today’s perspective) pretty routine, it doesn’t stand up that well to the Beatles, the Who and even in parts the Kink’s debuts, and if you didn’t know what they would become you might struggle to differentiate this from many of the other also rans in the blues boom.

However it does have charm. You can hear them all feeling their way and finding their feet, and you can see that the elements so integral to success are there; Charlie’s drumming, Mick’s louche vocal delivery and charisma, and the interplay of two guitars. And their reverence for the blues singers (and Chuck Berry) they cover is clearly apparent.

I love Tell Me, and as the one proper original it hints at their songwriting to come, eschewing the blues on the rest of the album for some loose pop-folk-rock with a sinister hint to it, and I love the backing vocals in the chorus, a bit all over the shop but they offer a peek at the woozy dishevellement to come in later years.

As an historical document it's interesting, as 30 minutes of music it is definitely patchy, some of the covers are great, but some are a little forgettable, but it all slides by with a nice, naive charm, with some interesting things happening around the edges. I think that all leads to it being a solid 3 .
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Playlist submission: Tell Me

Rings Around the World
Gosh, another blast from the early 2000s, another CD I bought and listened to heavily but then kind of forgot all about.

I’ve always liked SFA, and their eccentric and wonky pop-rock-electro-psychedelic noodling, and this album is full of it, from whimsy to seriousness and from dance to metal, often all in one song.

The lazy flow of the opener is great, as is the Supertramp electro-rock of Sidewalk Serfer Girl, and (Drawing) Rings Around the World is a fuzzed up belter. But Receptacle for the Respectable is a great example of their leftfield approach, starting off as a great strum along before the horns kick in and after the middle 8 extends into a heavy metal-esque jam, and I love how they get Macca to make an appearance and get him to just eat some vegetables - I presume this is a nod to the Beach Boys, as there are definite Brian Wilson influences scattered throughout.

No Sympathy is a similarly brilliant track, the folk-bluesy first part is superb as it builds to a frantic electronic conclusion. And Juxtapozed with U is a fantastic off kilter vaguely lounge/cinematic influenced pop song with a great melody. Run Christian Run is yet another great lazily flowing melody, again building to a schizophrenic crescendo.

There’s a lot of density to the album, with a lot going on, and not everything works fully, with some songs, despite having some great moments and touches, dragging a little, like Shoot Doris Day and Fragile Happiness, but overall its a great mashed up album.
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Playlist submission: No Sympathy

Arrival
When I Kissed the Teacher, in many ways is a suitable bedfellow for Does Your Mother Know, and amusingly and slightly ickily kicks off 30 odd minutes of pop melody brilliance.

Dancing Queen is of course a truly fantastic song, the piano, the strings, the synths, the number of hooks, the catchiness, the joyousness. It's easy to think it's been ruined by ubiquity and hen parties, but that doesn't matter, it's a brilliant bit of popular song designed to be enjoyed by as many people as possible.

My Love, My Life is one of many songs on here that feels a bit Christmassy, or at least Christmas adjacent, with the bells at the end. When I Kissed the Teacher also some bells going and Why Did It Have to Be Me has some Wizard Christmas song energy. And Arrival feels very Christmas Special TV show with its bagpipes-ness and ah ah ahhs.

That’s Me and Tiger I hadn’t heard before, but they are both fantastic, That’s Me has a bit of a Waterloo feel with its boogie pop sound, and it has another brilliant hook after the chorus, and Tiger is superb, full of hooks and a great dramatic sense to it.

Occasionally it flirts with sugary sickliness, eg My Love, My Life, but some of the cello strings doing interesting things just about pull it back. And something like Dum Dum Diddle is pretty throwaway, but it's still a great bit of catchy pop.

It’s taken me a while to warm to Money, Money, Money but now I think it’s great, a rolicking euro-drinking disco stomper. And Knowing Me, Knowing You is up there with SOS and The Visitors as my favourite Abba songs, doing that characteristic Abba trick of marrying sad, despondent words after divorce with fantastically catchy and brilliantly structured uptempo pop-rock music.

Despite flirting with some cheese and some throwaway moments, it is an incredibly joyful 33 minutes of brilliant music. 5.
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Playlist submission: Knowing Me, Knowing You

The Soft Bulletin
I feel broadly similar about this as I did with Yoshimi, although I think Yoshimi is definitely a better album. I do still like the hazy psychedelia and there are some good songs but overall it doesn’t quite land for me, passing me by in a fug of similar sounds and feels, with only Race for the Prize, Suddenly Something Has Changed and Feeling Yourself Disintegrate really standing out.

Yoshimi was a solid 3, and while fine, this is certainly a rung below that, and realistically I can’t see myself listening again, so I’ll go with a perhaps slightly harsh high 2.
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Playlist submission: Feeling Yourself Disintegrate