Reviews by ikejiri

Goodbye & Hello
I had The Tim Buckly double CD Anthology, which basically was his first few albums in order, I think I always preferred the songs from Happy Sad, including the superb Buzzin’ Fly, where there's a nice jazziness percolating the songs, rather than the more post Pepper psychedelic whimsy and hippiness on here.

That’s not to say there aren’t some excellent tracks, there definitely are, they are just perhaps scattered among some songs that are a bit clunkier, particularly lyrically on some of songs with Larry Beckett like No Man Can Find the War, Hallucinations, Knight Errant and Goodbye and Hello where the heavy handed hippie smugness or ren-fair nonsense is a little grating.

In the plus column though I like Pleasant Street, the intro piano feels quite Kinksian, as does the title, but it has a great melodramatic build, and I Never Asked to Be Your Mountain is a nice stomping psych-folk track. Once I Was is probably the best song, a great melody and a nice and languid folk-psych-country backing. Phantasmagoria in Two is nice, despite the title, and is quite Janschian in its guitar playing. Morning Glory is the best of the collaborations with Beckett, a lovely tune with a touch of the jazz that would come on Happy Sad, nice choral backing vocals and fiddle (I think).

I think ultimately despite those highlights the more dated and clunk tracks bring it down a notch or two. So it doesn't quite reach a 4, I’ll reserve that for Happy Sad
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Playlist submission: Once I Was

Blonde on Blonde
One of the albums I had on officially released MiniDisc, that I got alongside my minidisc player, and it still sometimes reminds me strongly of Christmas 1999, particularly the stellar Visions of Johanna. The bass on that song is absolutely superb, pushing and prodding the acoustic guitars and organ while Robbie Robertson’s fills sit in the gaps in the vocals brilliantly.

It’s surely one of his greatest songs, and then it's followed by the superb One of us Must Know, a great song with an incredibly disdainful and uncaring lyric. I love the tune and tunefulness of I Want You, surely one of the patient zero’s for Dylan parodies with its organ grinders and undertakers and piercing harmonica. Stuck Inside of Mobile was probably my favourite song on here for a long while, and I still love it, the organ and guitar are great foils for each other and it’s another pariodable Dylan lyric with Grandads, gun-toting senators and Shakespeare.

Leopard Skin Pill Box Hat and Rainy Day Women always felt cut from similar cloth to me, even though the former is more mean spirited than the silliness of the latter. Most Likely You Go Your Way and Absolutely Sweet Marie feel like cousins to Memphis, with a nice bluesy exuberance and a great hooks. The piano really is excellent on Temporary Like Achilles, giving the slow moving bluesiness an excellent atmosphere.

I love that 4th Time Around is related to Norwegian Wood, and you can hear echoes of the former and not a little light derision and sarcasm to some of the lines - I’ve always thought the line ‘gallantly handed her my very last piece of gum’ was pointed at Lennon. Obviously 5 Believers is a nice bit of sequencing, a relatively throwaway bit of blues before the genuinely epic Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands. I do love this song, but it sometimes depends on my mood how great I think the lyrics are. Maybe it’s because it was pretty groundbreaking in its imagery, similes and metaphors, but does a geranium smile actually mean anything? But does it have to mean anything other than being a literary device to conjure two ideas simultaneously? That’s the problem with doing these reviews about Dylan, you can easily come across as pseud, but equally you want to acknowledge the quality of the wordplay and imagery, even if ultimately it might not mean what you want it to mean.

But anyhow this is obviously a 5, a superb album with some all time classics of western post war pop music.
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Playlist submission: Visions of Johanna

Safe as Milk
I had this on CD, I seem to remember it having the residue of the yellow exclamation sticker on the case, so I’m pretty familiar with it.

It's much more straightforward than Trout Mask Replica, and while I think it does miss some of the deliberate and textured difficulty of that album, as an overall listening experience it's clearly far more pleasurable, aided by Ry Cooder’s excellent playing.

Some of the absurdism and wilfulness does persist though, sitting nicely alongside his obviously sincere love for the delta blues and a great ear for an earworm melody, and wrapped up in a late 60s counterculture feel.

The opening side is great, the stomping Sure ‘Nuff n’n Yes, I Do and Zig Zag Wanderer kick things off in a brilliantly frenetic way, Call on Me is powered by some excellent bass, as is the slightly unsettling Dropout Boogie. I’m Glad is a nice turn into soul/doo wop, with an earenest directness that I really like, and Electricity superb, an excellent, catchy bit of bluesy oddness.

Yellow Brick Road is such a sweet melody, a little bit Doobie Brothers in its easy countrified vibe. Abba Zaba I love for its idiosyncracy, another odd and catchy little gem. Although I like Plastic Factory and Where There’s a Woman they feel a little like diminishing returns compared to side 1, but I really like Grown So Ugly, the organ and drama making it a real highlight, as is the overwrought and theremin assisted Autumn's Child.

I think this settles as a solid 4, it's full of great moments and strange, brilliant catchiness, but it does dip a little in the 2nd half.
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Playlist submission: Abba Zaba

Viva Hate
This has a kind of subdued gentleness to it that I found very appealing, especially compared to what I felt was the rather hollow glam bombast of some of the other solo albums we’ve had. Part of that might be due to the excellence of Vini Reilly, he’s particularly great on Late Night, Maudlin Street, but also you can see a degree of tenderness and empathy between the sarcasm and snark, before he retreated behind the carapace of self pitying cuntyness he developed latterly.

Alsatian Cousin has a slight Gang of Four edge to it, perhaps again due to the Vini Reilly connection, and it sounds like a bit of a step away from The Smiths, although it's a little bit of an outlier for what follows. Little Man, What Now, Bengali in Platforms, Late Night, Dial a Cliche and Margaret on the Guillotine have an acoustic shuffle and softness to them that I really like and wasn’t expecting, and then the two most famous songs on Everyday is Like Sunday and Suedehead are great bits of melodic guitar pop, kind of Smithsian, but more presaging the early sounds of Britpop. Angel Angel Down We Go Together has a nice baroque feel, a little like that XTC album, but with a more compelling vocal style.

It’s certainly the strongest and most interesting album of his, and it has enough to breeze past Your Arsenal into the 4s.
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Playlist submission: Late Night, Maudlin Street

Rapture
This is bookended by two great songs, the excellent as balls Sweet Love and the 80s soul-pop excellence of Watch Your Step, a song that recalls I Knew You Were Waiting and Put a Little Love in Your Heart in its 80s soundtrackness.

In between it really is a mixed bag, there are some excellently smooth songs and vocals, enhanced by the big, wide 80s production sheen. Alongside the two songs above Caught Up in the Rapture and Mystery work really well, Mystery is good and the smoothed out non threatening funk of Same Ole Love is a nice listen. But then that smoothness does slide into narcolepsy, with a kind of paper thin nothingness to it as on Been So Long, or the jazz singing ends up sounding like Rachelle Ferrell in that meme on something like You Bring Me Joy.

Not sure where that places it, it is an easy listen with some definite highlights, but it’s not really a patch on Diamond Life’s vaguely edgy fluidity as a comparison. Will I listen again, on balance probably, so I’ll just slip it to a 3.
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Playlist submission: Watch Your Step

The Infotainment Scan
Similarly to Live at the Witch Trials I wasn’t familiar with this album, although I’m pretty sure I’ve heard their version of Lost in Music a few times, and I do like it a lot. For some reason Mark E Smith changing the lyrics from ‘I quit my 9 to 5’ to ‘I quit my 10 to 5’ really tickles me.

It obviously has a softer, and for them, more commercially appealing sound, clearly heavily influenced by The Happy Mondays. I think that really works over the opening 4 songs Ladybird and Glam-Racket in particular, but by the time it gets to It’s a Curse I find I’m missing the more stereotypical thud and bass of their normal sound. It probably doesn’t help that It’s a Curse sounds a lot like that U2 song from a few years back.

Paranoia Man in Cheap Shit Room is excellent though, breaking up the smoother sound with some typical abrasive awkwardness. After that it’s a little more uneven, Service is very Happy Mondays and the generic early 90s dance vibe of Past Gone Mad feels more Utah Saints and I’m not sure it sits that well. Light/Fireworks is great though, little more than some growling and plasticy percussion until the last minute, but it creates a great little odd moment to end the album.

This Nation’s Saving Grace still remains the apogee of the Fall albums that I do know, and I think this does miss the growling bass, thudding percussion and spiky snarl of that album, sitting a notch or two below it at a 4.
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Playlist submission: Lost in Music

Survivor
I bought this album at the time, I think off the back of really liking Independent Women Part 1, Survivor and Bootylicious.

Those three songs are still great, and it sort of makes sense to front load the album with them as nothing else really gets anywhere near their level, despite quite a few songs trying to replicate the formula of those songs. Nasty Girl is maybe the most successful, despite lyrics that seem rather mean-spirited and dated from 25 years distance, and in comparison or SZA the other day too.

After that it descends pretty quickly, Apple Pie A La Mode’s lyrics are so laughable they could be a parody, and Sexy Daddy is pretty awful from pretty much every perspective. Happy Face seems oddly out of place, like the Vengaboys or something, and their version of Emotion is so desperately over emoted that it is almost entirely flat and meaningless. Which also goes for Dangerously in Love, a dangerously insipid ballad. Brown Eyes is pure Lonely Island, and although the chorus has a degree of melody, the lyrical platitudes undercut it. The Story of Beauty is another retread of those good songs. Outro at least has some rhythmic interest, recalling TLC, but the lyrics/spoken word parts are toe curling, with the references to god and the gushing praise of each other - which feels incredibly cynical after chucking people out of the band at Beyonce’s dad’s behest.

Some of the vocal arrangements and harmonies are of course very good, and Beyonce is so obviously the alpha, it was inevitable she would go on to be an enormous solo star. But the whole thing has the dead hand of pushy parent and stage school desperation hanging all over it. As great as the first 3 songs are, they can’t make up for the joylessness of the rest of it. 2.

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Playlist submission: Bootylicious or Independent Women Pt 1, Bootylicious

Pacific Ocean Blue
I love this album, it reminds me very much of 2007 and 2008 in Japan when I first heard it, I think when it got re-issued and became well known as a great lost/cult album. I definitely wouldn’t have been clued up enough to have found it independently

The reverb heavy and thick sound is fantastic, especially with Dennis’ worn and raspy vocals. A pristine Beach Boys sound just wouldn’t suit the songs, his voice and the overall vibe.

And it has loads of brilliant songs. River Song is superb, Moonshine’s leap at around 30 seconds into an orchestral melodrama is excellent. I love Friday Night’s psychedelic orchestral opening leading into the soulful main part of the song. I love the middle 8 breakdown of Dreamer, just a great moment on an album full of great moments. Thoughts of You combines excellent strings, piano and vocal reverb with a lovely tenderness, tenderness that continues with Time, a very nice ballad. You and I is excellent, a soulful jazzy west coast feel to it. Pacific Ocean Blues is a great groove and an excellent production, the choral vocals and burbling Moog really are great. Farewell My Friend is another tenderly beautiful song, I love his rough voice on it. Rainbows is just a great melody, a lovely tune and End of the Show leaves the album on a suitably dramatic and melancholic tone.

Sometimes cult albums aren’t actually that great when separated from the legend and the myth, but some are just outright brilliant, and this is one of those. Easy five for me.
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Playlist submission: River Song

Live and Dangerous
I’ve always quite liked Thin Lizzy, but I’ve never really properly listened to them, so a live album didn't immediately appeal to me.

However this is very enjoyable, it helps to have a degree of familiarity with a few of the songs compared to something like the Cheap Trick live album, and their pop-bluesy-hard rock is a more fun proposition than say every Motorhead song except Ace of Spades on No Sleep Till Hammersmith.

Obviously there's a degree of contention of how much was live and overdubbed, but they are clearly a tight band, and there is a palpable sense of energy and excitement, a quality that rarely comes across on live albums. I also really like Phil Lynott’s voice, his laconic and easy going delivery against the heavier music is a great combination, and he has a great lyrical eye for little portraits of people and everyday life.

A double album is _a lot_ though, it all blurring a little by the middle of Side 2 and after The Boys are Back in Town, even if the energy never actually dims or dulls. If it was a single album I think it would be a 4, however the length does drop it to a 3.
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Playlist submission: The Boys Are Back In Town

Cafe Bleu
You’ve got to admire the apparent complete about face from The Jam to the Style Council, although the soul influence on song choice and songwriting in The Jam was pretty much there from the start with Slow Down on the debut through to Sound Affects and most obviously The Gift.

You could argue the soulfulness works better with the punkish mod of The Jam in Precious and Town Called Malice, than the more wine bar smoothness of this album, but I really do like how far he pushed it on here, and there are some great songs on the album, irrespective of production and style. The Whole Point of No Return, Strength of Your Nature, Here’s One That Got Away (an obvious Dexy’s influence via Mick Talbot) and Headstart of Happiness are great, and My Every Changing Moods and You’re the Best Thing are among some of Weller’s best songs I think. The Paris Match has its moments, but Tracy Thorn's soporific presence diminishes it somewhat

But there are undoubtedly a few tracks that either don’t work or don’t seem like brilliant ideas to start with - Me Ship Came In feels pretty fillery, the jazz feels a bit ersatz on Dropping Bombs on the Whitehouse. A Gospel’s synth bass is nice, but the rapping is bad - even if dipping nascent hip hop was sort of ahead of its time for 1982 - and the overall result is not good.

Think i’ll nudge it to a 4, it has a few flaws and feels a little disjointed, but I do really like it and there are some great songs.
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Playlist submission: You’re The Best Thing

The Revelator
This was great, and a nailed on 5 after just the first two tracks - I love Revelator’s dark and mournful tone, and My First Lover’s bluegrass groove is excellent. Dear Someone’s pared back and direct arrangement is superb. April the 14th has a brilliant melancholy to it, again with a lovely arrangement. I love the vocals and harmonies on I Want to Sing that Rock’n’Roll. Elvis Presley Blues is great and I love the folk-blues, Dylan-esque Ruination Day Pt. 2, as well as the sparse and beautiful Everything is Free. And it closes on the low key and sprawling I Dream a Highway.

Her vocals are superb throughout, and I love the playing - part folk, part blues, part bluegrass - and production, it’s a lovely sounding and beautifully played album. 5.
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Playlist submission: Revelator

Ctrl
Let me tell you a secret, I’ve been secretly banging your homeboy

Musically and rhythmically I really liked this. The drum sound and patterns throughout are great, particularly on Supermodel, Go Gina and Doves in the Wind, and I really like the woozy pitch shifting and synths on the latter. Prom has nice early 80s drum machine feel and The Weekend has an excellent synth line, and Anything has some enjoyable squiggles and drumming.

But I really don’t enjoy her vocal affectations, particularly the rhoticism, sounding too much like John Lewis advert singing. Melodically it’s also a bit hit and miss, Love Galore and Doves in the Wind are nice, and Prom is very catchy, but too frequently it leans too heavily into horizontalness, meaning a lot of the songs don’t feel particularly memorable.

Overall, it's a funny one, there’s lots I like, and it did grow on me, but the vocal style and vocal mannerisms and style are just a bit jarring. I’ll just scrape it to a low 3, mainly on the music and production.
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Playlist submission: Doves in the Wind

Third
Oddly I’m more familiar with this than either Dummy of Portishead. Dummy kind of passed me by when it came out, but by the time this came out I was more into them.

I love the darker, more oppressive feel of this, although it takes some time to adjust to the fractured edges and discomforting rhythms. Much of it has an abruptness and harsh editing, apart from Beth Gibbon’s voice very little flows smoothly, with only little fragments of tunes and musicality appearing and disappearing.

Silence’s motorik drumming and nagging bass establish the tension that carries on for the whole album, Hunter’s Kid A-esque cut up gurgles and forlornly strummed guitar give me a sense of falling slowly through the floor, and Nylon Smile follows it with more rhythmic uneasiness.

The Rip’s folky arpeggios giving way to pulsing synths is a superb combination, a truly great song, again similar to Radiohead, but it provides one of the few vaguely hopeful melodies, alongside Magic Doors, on the album. Plastic brings us back to the broken gloominess, the synths and guitars weighing heavy. We Carry On starts with some Dandy Warhols-esque toms, before building a thumping, lumbering groove, with some great slightly Public Image style guitar.

Deep Water is a welcome, if no less disconsolate, diversion into a gentle ukulele driven mood, before the brilliantly propulsive and percussive Machine Gun. Small’s use of organ gives it a slight prog feel, but set against the urgency of the rhythm track and the sombre vocals and claustrophobic noise. Magic Doors really is superb, the piano chords, although slightly fuzzy, give a welcome human touch, before the awkward, disquieting sax, and it’s also another great vocal and vocal melody. Threads feels perhaps closest to their first album, hinting at 60s soundtracks, rather than the more sci-fi and threatening influences elsewhere.

Not necessarily an easy album, and not really that comparable to Dummy, but it is nevertheless a truly excellent album. 5.
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Playlist submission: Could be Silence, The Rip, Machine Gun, but I will go for Magic Doors

Country Life
Initially I wasn’t that convinced by this, but it really grew on me on repeat listens. It doesn’t quite reach the heights of For Your Pleasure, but it’s certainly on a par with Roxy Music, even if it is missing Eno’s pull towards arty sounds and ambience.

The Thrill Of It All is an absolute banger, a stompingly brilliant opener. Clearly much more guitar focused without Eno, and the fiddle and sax add a great dramatic flourish to Ferry’s melodramatic presence. All I Want is You draws from a similar tempo and guitar focus and is similarly excellent.

Three and Nine has a great louche feel with an easy 70s atmosphere, and Out of The Blue feels like it harks back to the first two albums, and I love the slight funk breakdown into the excellent middle eight. If It Takes All Night and Bitter Sweet are a slight dip for me, the former’s 50s rock’n’roll feeling too much like middle of the road glam for such a great band, and I’m just not a fan of the Kurt Weil/Berthold Brecht-ness of the latter.

Triptych is a nice return to RM idiosyncrasy, the harpsichord and medieval feel giving it a sinister and beguiling edge. Casanova’s harder funk-guitar edge is excellent, with perhaps a nod to Eno with the synth lines, but I love its scornful lyrics and fractured rhythmic sense. A Really Good Time is a great Ferry crooner, reminiscent of his solo stuff perhaps and Prairie Rose is a great closer, a nicely RM take on country with the slide and almost Byrdsian opening guitar, surely an influence on Talking Heads in the marriage of country and art-rock.

Overall a great album, easily sitting alongside the debut and just below FYP. Mid to high 4.
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Playlist submission: The Thrill of It All

There’s A Riot Goin’ On
I used to love this album, I think it was a purchase from one of those record fairs at Dunelm House, but I’ve not listened to it in a long time.

Listening now reminded me how great it is, its dense, murky relentlessly overdubbed sound reflecting the intraband tensions, but also the tensions of the post hippie early 70s period, and an excellent contrast to the optimistic dance and self empowerment of Stand from two years before.

The grooves are relentless and slightly unsettling, mining similar tempos with the drum machine poking through the murk occasionally, with guitars added short sharp accents and the bass to the fore. From time to time sunniness penetrates the heaviness and their melodic skill shows as on Family Affair, You Caught Me Smilin’ and Runnin’ Away.

But the more paranoid, heavy, muggy tracks are the ones that stay with you, Luv N’ Haight, Poet and the superb twin stand out epics of Africa Talks To You and Thank You for Talkin’ To Me Africa. They both have an unforgiving and hypnotic feel, aided by the inconsistent production, they are simultaneously addictive and slightly uncomfortable.

It’s been great revisiting and being reminded what an album this is. 5.
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Playlist submission: Africa Talks To You

Frank
I didn’t find this to be quite as engaging or indeed as great as Back to Black, but I still enjoyed it. It definitely feels like a debut album in that there are a handful of very good songs, but much of it does feel like she is trying to find a sound and a style that truly suits her.

When the Tony Bennet/Billie Holiday/Frank Sinatra influences mesh well with the jazzy hip inflections it you get excellent songs like Fuck Me Pumps, and What Is It About Men or the other great singles in Stronger Than Me, Take the Box of Help Yourself. I also like the woodwind assisted I Heard Love is Bind and In My Bed

That same Tony Bennet/Billie Holiday/Frank Sinatra influence can sometimes weigh a bit heavy though, the excessive jazzy syllabary and the hip hop/contemporary accents can feel a bit unsure and unsteady, particularly on You Sent Me Flying, which tends to replace melody with jazz yeah yeahs and jazz noises and October Song, which feels a bit fillery.

Back to Black obviously courted a more commercial sound, with a broader set of influences alongside the jazziness, and is more successful for it, feeling much more assured and focused (and with more better songs), as opposed to the slightly cautious feel this has. It’s still a good album, and her charisma is undeniable, but it doesn’t ever feel fully satisfying, which means it just falls short of a 4.
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Playlist submission: Fuck Me Pumps

Oar
I’d never heard of this, or him before. Obviously I’ve now read he was in Moby Grape, and looking back I liked their debut, it being a little bit apart in its psychedelic folkishness, eschewing their contemporaries' acid blues aimlessness.

This seems to carry some of that folk-bluesiness, and Little Hands is a superb opener, and I like the stentorian vocalism of Cripple Creek or Broken Heart, evoking Leonard Cohen and more obviously Scott Walker. Occasionally it trips a bit close to that David Ackles album, as on Margarest-Tiger Rug or Dixies Peach Promenade, but it then skips to something forlornly excellent like Weighted Down, or the Sunshine of Your Love referencing War in Peace. It also has a bit of Donovan to things like All Come To Meet Her or Lawrence of Euphoria and some early Dylan to Books of Moses. The highlight for me though is the spooky and mesmeric Grey/Afro, a song that feels slightly ahead of its time in its Velvet Underground droning groove.

This has all the elements of an influential, re-discovered cult album, which obviously it has been over the last 10 or 15 years, and I really enjoyed it. It’s certainly a bit uneven, and you can easily infer his mental state from some of the more obtuse melodic and vocal moments (and his hair on the cover), but it's hypnotic and beguiling in its idiosyncrasy, and musically it’s a great combination of off kilter folk, psych and blues, making it a 4 and a nice discovery for me.
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Playlist submission: Grey/Afro

Ocean Rain
Doorsian and goth-lite with superb pop instincts, the opening run of Silver, Nocturnal Me and Crystal Days is superb, and alongside Seven Seas and the peerless The Killing Moon cements why this is their best album. The liberal use of strings, acoustic guitars and the departure from post punk rhythms give it kind of adumbral grandeur - nothing is hurried, but it has a kind of creepy urgency.

The influence of the Doors is evident throughout, but it perhaps peaks derivatively on Thorn of Crowns. It’s not a bad song, but it's possibly the only misstep among the 8 songs on here. I love the Waltzy oddness of The Yo Yo Man, and My Kingdom is a great album track, a nicely played melodic bit of mid 80s pop with a stately chorus and some customarily great Will Sergeant guitar and the title track is great slow burn, softly melodic with an umbrageous darkness to it.

I do love this album, even though it features less of the post punk excellence of Pete de Freitas and to some extent Will Sergeant, it's a welcome progression from their excellent earlier sound, and their embrace of a more haughtily orchestral sound is great, suiting McCulloch's enjoyably pretentious and high handed lyrics and vocals. 5.
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Playlist submission: The Killing Moon

Born to Run
From laid back in the pocket jazz to rock bombast and strained earnestness, and it's a great transition

While I really like The River, and think it should probably be on the list ahead of Darkness on the Edge of Town, this is really his best pre-Nebraska album, the perfect synthesis of his 70s take on Elvis, Bo Diddley and Roy Orbison and his escape-narrative songwriting, packed with excellent songs and imagery.

The 5 note riff of Born to Run is so effectively and evocatively simple, somehow magically capturing the essence of the song (and much of the album), the desire of escape and what it might promise, but with the underlying sense that the protagonist will never actually get away. Thunder Road obviously is in a similar vein, and they both serve a similar role as shots of optimistic fantasy as opening tracks on each side, before the songs turn darker and more hopeless, particularly the fantastic, sad but surging Jungleland.

Melodically and musically the whole album is particularly strong, especially compared to Darkness on the Edge of Town. I’ve always loved She’s The One, with its Bo Diddley rhythm and Elvis-esque delivery, with the twinkly, hopeful piano motif against the despondent lyrics. Tenth Avenue Freeze Out and the probably overlooked Night are superb, Backstreets has a brilliant dramatic intensity and I really like the jazziness of Meeting Across the River, it’s melancholic horn line kind of echoing the doomed, late night hopelessness of the story.

It really is a fantastic album, 8 perfectly sequenced songs, with a common theme across them and some superb melodies in Thunder Road, Born to Run, She’s the One and Jungleland. Easy 5.
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Playlist submission: She’s the One of Born to Run, Born to Run

Time Out
More jazz, more like jazz.

Take Five is obviously the classic jazz track, its piano and horn line are effortlessly memorable and no matter how many times you hear it still sounds great, with the feeling that it's never quite resolving the way you expect, perhaps due to the time signature or just the quality of the interplay of piano and horns. I always assumed Dave Brubeck wrote it, rather than arranging the tune.

It closes a superb first side of the record. Strange Meadow Lark has such an easy charm, the piano moving freely with a lovely deftness. And Blue Rondo a la Turk really is excellent, Wikipedia says it is a Jazz standard, but I can’t say I’ve heard it before. The piano figure that opens it feels very influential, on people like Radiohead and LCD Soundsystem, but also on House and Techno and the middle section has a lovely breathiness and easiness before resolving again.

The second side may not have tracks as stellar as Blue Rondo or Take Five, but it’s still excellent, living up to the Cool Jazz soubriquet, both in terms of the genre’s structure and tempo and its laid back, smokey, hip jazz man feel. There is some superb drumming on Three to Get Ready, and you can certainly hear the echoes of All My Loving in Kathy’s Waltz, outside the Paris street cafe feel of the mid section. I love the last couple of minutes of Everybody's Jumpin as the piano gives way to some great drumming and horns. Pick Up Sticks might be the highlight of the 2nd side, again particularly over the last couple of minutes, with an almost Rachmaninov feel to the piano.

Before doing the list I probably would have been reflexively dismissive of this, outside Take Five. Now, however, I really enjoy much of the jazz the list has thrown up, and it’s hard to quibble with any part of this album, so it easily gets to a 5.
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Playlist submission: Probably should be Take Five, but I’ll go Rondo a la Turk