listening2… is a series of regular posts on what I’ve been listening to. Tracks from my travels. New songs and music to explore further. Half forgotten tracks from my collection. Roadtrip gems. If you like this post, let me know or, even better, let someone else know!
Listening2… 01/8/2024
#08: The Rough Trade summer sale CD edition
In this week’s listening2… I love a sale. One of the best this year was the Rough Trade Summer Sale and some of the best value music I found was on CD.
Crate digging, by definition, is about finding hidden gems and familiar bargains. And that was certainly the case with this summer sale. I paid no more than £3.99 for any of these CDs, and they are all bangers. Much of this music was new to me, and so are some of the artists – but there are also a couple of albums I’ve had on my list for a while.
So, in this edition there are tracks from Gracie Abrams, Marika Hackman and Courtney Burnett; and from a live album from Lisa Gerrard and Jules Maxwell, a new album from UK rapper, Songer, and the beautiful Angels and Queens from Gabriels (which was already very firmly on my to-do list).
1. Gracie Abrams - I know it won’t work
From her 2023 debut album, Good Riddance
I first came across Gracie Abrams last year on Instagram. Aaron Dessner from the National and Big Red Machine had worked on Taylor Swift’s lockdown albums, Folklore and Evermore, and I started following him. In early 2023, he posted about Gracie Abrams and her debut album, Good Riddance which he had worked. It went on my musical ‘to-do’ list until I came across the CD in the RT sale a couple of weeks ago. Since then Abrams’ profile has grown, joining Taylor Swift on dates on her Eras tour, and bringing out her new album (also written and produced with Dessner) The Secret of Us, a few weeks ago. Another one for the to-do pile…
Good Riddance is a lovely album and Swifties, along with fans of the National, will love it, I think. I’m exploring it. It’s a little bit Taylor, a little bit lo-fi Americana, a little bit Indie. My favourite track at the moment is this one:
2. Courtney Barnett - History Eraser
From her 2013 LP: The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas
Courtney Barnett is one of those artists who always seems to be having fun with her music. Having made a bit of a name in Melbourne, Australia, she became a growing indie presence over the last decade or so, after this double EP came out in the US and UK. It was originally released as two EPs, the wonderfully titled How to Carve a Carrot into a Rose and I've Got a Friend Called Emily Ferris.
I think I’ll be playing this a lot – it’s a feel good record - and I love this video of History Eraser:
3. Lisa Gerrard & Jules Maxwell - Keson (Until My Strength Returns)
From their album, One Night in Porto (Live at Casa da Música, Porto)
The thing about finding new music is that it carries whole new worlds and unexpected ecologies of sound. Histories I never knew existed open up and there are endless rabbit holes to go down. This album is one such rabbit hole.
Lisa Gerrard also started out in Melbourne, Australia as part of the city’s post-punk scene and then as founder of the band, Dead Can Dance in 1981. Since then she’s worked across genres, and with numerous collaborators producing classical, electronic, avant garde and film projects, as well has releasing four solo albums. There’s almost too much to discover!
This album was a recorded live interpretation of Lisa Gerrard and Jules Maxwell’s 2022 album Burn. Combining piano and electronics with Gerrard’s extraordinary voice, the live album adds texture and atmosphere to what is already an intriguing set on the original record.
This (linked to HERE) is the ‘live’ album version recorded at the Casa da Musica in Porto on the 23rd November 2022. This video below, however, was recorded four days earlier and captures the dynamic performance that is intrinsic to the project and gives more of the feel of it. What a find!1
4. Gabriels – Angels and Queens
From their 2023 album, Angels and Queens
When I heard Gabriels’, Angels and Queens part 1, I couldn’t wait for the full album. I’d also come across their first EP, Love and Hate in a Different Time and (like Elton John) loved it.2
The full album, when it dropped, was just as good as promised and full of strange and wonderful gospel-tinged, soul music sung by the amazing Jacob Lusk (an American church choir veteran and ex finalist on American Idol in 2011). The other two band members are producer, Ryan Hope (from Sunderland) and composer, Ari Balouzian. They did a great set at Glastonbury last year, which you can find HERE, and there are so many amazing live tracks on YouTube and elsewhere.
This was definitely my bargain of the Rough Trade sale - I’ve chosen the title track as my Listening too… song from this album.
5. Songer - ft. D Double E
From his 2023 album, Skala
Songer is a British rapper from Reading, who is already a veteran of four albums, and has developed an unique voice and profile, as well as collaborating with other artists across hip hop and drum and bass genres as part of the influential BlackBox series: The People’s Channel || Home of the Up & Coming…
He’s new to me… but I absolutely love the production on this album and his Streets-style tongue-in-cheek commentary on urban/suburban life. The title track, Skala is excellent, but I’ve chosen this one – ft. D Double E – for the sheer exuberance and danceability…
His new album, The Price of Therapy came out this year…
6.Marika Hackman - Slime
From her 2024 album, Big Sigh
This one is intriguing. Marika Hackman has been around for a while now, and I’d heard tracks from her on 6 Music and elsewhere, but never really got deep into an album. Big Sigh is her fifth LP, but it feels like a good place from which to explore. Sometimes picking up an album some way into an artist’s musical career can be really rewarding, so I have big hopes from this album. The video below, Slime, is my chosen track for this list, but I also love the quietly devastating and beautifully harmonised The Yellow Mile too… 3
Fun fact & Bonus video 1: One of Lisa Gerrard’s recent projects was to record Henryk Gorecki’s Symphony No 3, Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, OP 36, with the Genesis Orchestra, in a performance and album with a number of her own songs. You can find the full performance HERE. You might recall that one of my previous pieces was about Beth Gibbons and her very special recording of the Gorecki symphony.
Bonus video 2: My mate Elton said of Love and Hate in a Different Time that it was "one of the most seminal records I've heard in the past 10 years". I couldn't have put it better myself, Mr Dwight! This short film made around the title track is brilliant. Gabriels wrote this about it:
“The actual definition of the dancefloor is something that has always fascinated us. It’s a space we express ourselves ultimately. However as huge Adam Curtis fans we’ve always been fascinated with origins and definitions. The complex relationships between subjects and the stories we are told to learn about them. When we started researching the history of the dancefloor and found that Thomas Edison was one of the first to film a dancefloor and that he monetized it in the way he did. We think of where we are at now and ask what have we really learned? That is the concept behind the film for Love and Hate in a Different Time.”
Bonus audio: Marika Hackman recently appeared in the 2024 BBC Prom 8: Nick Drake - An Orchestral Celebration alongside The Unthanks, Gabrielle Drake, Scott Matthews, BC Camplight, Olive Chaney and the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jules Buckley. I’m hoping this might appear on iPlayer as a video soon, but the full concert is currently available on BBC Sounds here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00214k0
I love Gabriels!