A Majestic Piece of Friday Splendidness by the Impressions

It's Friday, the sun is shining, and Heavy Soil is in a moderately jubilant frame of mind. In celebration of this fact, we present: sunnyfridaysong.

Download an mp3 of Gone Away by The Impressions

This comes to us courtesy of the recommendation of the wise Mr Craig (here he is on Twitter; here he writes about things cinematographic; and here is our opinion of his own superb musics), who is pretty hot on the jazzward side of the musical spectrum.

So … back to 'Gone Away'.

I love the opening, with its dark, reedy horns and shimmering tremolando strings – and the thoroughly unexpected harmonic shift as the intro steps up into verse 1. Altogether the arrangement is a majestic piece of splendidness, inspired glockenspiel figures, insistent syncopations, seamlessly interwoven countermelodies and all.

2.23's shift to major is ace, too, as we burst into the middle-8. Then, twenty seconds later, we're treated to an exhilaratingly vertiginous interlude of triple time. Brilliant.

Nice bass, too. And, of course, the vocals are superb – backing and lead.

(Incidentally, I realise that – lyrically – this isn't exactly sunnyfriday in spirit. But, hell, it's good, innit?)

Escaping Hallelujah Bollockry with Joan As Police Woman

With all the talk of Jeff Buckley, lately – thanks (if 'thanks' be quite the word) to X-Factor 'Hallelujah' bollockry – Heavy Soil is impelled to direct its followers ears in a wholly different direction at the Buckey crossroads.

That direction? Joan As Police Woman. Who – to these ears – is rather Buckleyesque. Not so much in terms of her vocals themselves (considerably less acrobatically inclined); more the character of the songwriting and the soul-infused performances.

I've been listening to 2008's album To Survive, from which today's Heavy Song is taken:

Download Furious mp3 via YouSendIt

The swoops, changes and intensity all recall Buckley.

I'd recommend giving the whole album a listen or five – as the above track illustrates but one facet. Opener 'Honor Wishes', for instance, is like a lush, woody Portishead (combining hypnotic presence and near-funereal groove).

Throughout the album, there's a sparseness and a freeform quality to the songs that's almost classical, at times. Certainly, the music gives the impression of organicity, rather than contrivance – full of sinuous lines and pellucid arrangements.

Alternative, soul-soaked chamber pop? Something like that, perhaps.

I remember reading something said in an interview by Fyfe "Dangerfield", lead singer of the Guillemots (alongside whom I once sang tenor in the school choir, would you believe?). He said that Guillemots' aim was to make soul music cool again. Or something along those lines.

I have to say, old boy: Joan beat you to it, rather.

Buy To Survive on Amazon

Tendrils, Colours, Dogs and Farts ... Arvo Part

Okay, so we've had a couple of literal takes on the falling theme. All well and good. But Heavy Soil ain't just about what it says on the tin, you know.

(You've read the tin, I presume? If not, you know what to do.)

So, let's have a listen (shall we?) to music that embodies – rather than simply referring to – the concept of descent.

(The Concept Of Descent. Prog-rock album-title, in the bag.)

For our embodiment of descent, then, a bit o' the contemporary classical, courtesy of the allround superb composer Arvo Part.

Download Arvo Part's Wallfahrtslied mp3 via YouSendIt

(Yes, it has the syllable fart in it. Grow up.)

Listen to those gossamer strings – vibrato-free, icy sonic tendrils. The way they seem constantly to strain wanly against the chords in which they find themselves bound, the melodies making futile sequential bids to rise, but being dragged ever deeper by the unremitting bass.

This is a beautifully conducted and performed recording – each entry impeccably timed, each phrase tapered with masterful control.

There's an elemental quality to the music ... earth and air ... wonderfully colourful orchestration.

Nowhere is the subsiding nature of the music better illustrated than in the passage beginning at 3.26 – built around a descending chromatic scale (series of semitone drops).

In the end, though, I suppose descent is escaped (though hardly triumphantly) – as the violins (with agonising slowness) climb to dog-whistlingly high reaches, settling finally on a faint, unwavering unison. But, what the hell. It's mostly about falling.

And wouldn't this just make cracking film music, eh?

Buy Orient Occident on Amazon

Andrew Lloyd Weezer

Weezer's Pinkerton is a brilliant album. Some people debate its preeminence, focusing their adulation instead upon the band's debut 'blue' album.

To them I say, 'I respectfully yet emphatically disagree with your point of view.'

Heck yes.

Falling For You (download mp3 via YouSendIt) is all about the guitar solo from 2.10, and the accompanying extra-matured-cheddar-cheesy sequence of key-changes, which could almost come from an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical.

IN A GOOD WAY.

... All culminating in a lovely interrupted cadence (/key change) at 2.35 (translation: you were expecting triumphant and happy; it goes sad and wistful). The beauty is that these are such hackneyed musical motifs and devices. It's almost banal. But – crucially – not even slightly so in this context.

It mentions cellos, too, thereby notching up several bonus points.

Weren't Weezer so much better before they went compression-mad? Why the hell doesn't Rivers Cuomo write songs like this any more? Songs that teeter majestically on the upturned drawing-pin balanced on the hairline division between irony and intense self-revelation.

Buy Pinkerton on Amazon

Lingering Seconds With Megan Palmer

A suspended 2nd in a minor chord. Minor 9th, if that's the way you prefer to think of it. A pretty scrunchy, yet still tonal, melodic and (relatively) accessible dissonance. And quite a nice'n at that.

Megan Palmer makes good use of these babies in today's song, Hair of the Dog (download mp3 via YouSendIt). Listen as she sings, 'Better to chase or be chased' (the second line of the song) - the way the melody stubbornly refuses to resolve, lingering on the 2nd. The motif recurs throughout.

Chord-wise, this is a simple song: nothing too tricksy happening ... Allowing the melody, with its enforced dissonance, to remain at centre-stage.

I like the unfussy, recorded-in-a-room violin – pleasantly imperfect.

If, dear Soiler, this is to your taste, why not shimmy over to the official Megan Palmer site?

An ear-scything return to the credit crunch theme

A couple of weeks back, here on Heavy Soil, we indulged ourselves in topical manner with a soundtrack to the credit crunch.

Although I'd wound up that theme, musician and prolonged flickerer Mr Ally Craig yesterday sent me the following song:

In the Red by Abbey Lincoln (download mp3 via YouSendIt)

In Ally's words: "Not exactly easy on the ears, harmony-wise (and that's rich coming from me), but rather good I think."

The boy jests not. It's pretty intense stuff. The deliberate, austere harmonies (bitonal, atonal) combined with a forthright, strident melodicism often apparently unrelated to its backing remind me of Benjamin Britten (one for another day, I feel).

One thing with this recording is that, on my headphones, it was almost unbearably cutting (I had to turn the volume right down to save my poor ears). Old recording. So, yes, I'd possibly advocate a bit of judicious EQing, depending on your listening context ...

Free Eels with strings. And caps lock.

Eels fans are already spoilt for rarities, thanks to the release of Useless Trinkets, earlier this year (er ... hmm ... strictly speaking, though, they ain't all that 'rare', are they, once they've been included on a major release compilation?).

Now, though, they have the chance to get their probably-not-all-that-grubby mitts on yet more music.

A 'DELUXE NUMBERED & SIGNED 4 LP EDITION - LIMITED TO 2500' of the lovely Blinking Lights and Other Revelations ships tomorrow, according to the band website.

(Caps lock, eh? Who doesn't love it?)

So, this release consists of Blinking Lights... reproduced on 3 LPs, plus (on the fourth) an 'exclusive 17 track live album, MANCHESTER 2005'.

Right now, you can download four free mp3s taken from this live collection – featuring some nice strings. Hurry, though, won't you? Apparently, these tracks are only available until Tuesday (tomorrow).

Here's the link to the free Eels mp3s. Once you've recovered from the colour scheme and 'interesting' font choices, look for the beigeish box on the lower left.

For the lazy or cautious, though, here's Heavy Soil's pick of the four:

Download Eels Climbing to the Moon live mp3 via YouSendIt

Your Latest Trick

Anyone who has seen the fantastic (fantastic, I tell you!) finale to the second season of The West Wing will have encountered ample evidence of the following fact:

They may not be cool, but Dire Straits fucking hit the button.

'Brothers In Arms' is the obvious song – and I'm pretty tempted to hunt down a YouTube clip of that aforementioned West Wing sequence. But I won't. I'd hate to spoil it for those of you yet to watch the episode in question.

Instead, I nominate another Dire Straits carjourney companion of old: 'Your Latest Trick'. Here's the music from YouTube – or you can listen to the song on last.fm.

Dig that sax.

Oh how clever I thought these lyrics were, when I used to listen to this song on my walkman. That stunning wordplay '12 keys hanging off of my chain' ... Ah! Such things were the meat and drink of the young Billicatons.

Don't Be Embarrassed

With a deft manipulation of her rudder, the good ship Heavy Soil heads into tempestuous waters with a new theme:

Songs It May Not Be Particularly Cool To Like

This theme, my friends, is screaming out for your comments. Heck, your suggestions.

What are the songs you hate to love? The songs that would make the most tolerant indie-kid (what do you mean, "Oxymoron"?) sneer? The songs that went out and never came back – but for whose loss you secretly weep while others celebrate?

Heavy Soil wants to know. Comments, please, ladies and gentlemen!

As grease to lubricate the cogs of your mind, here's our first pick. 

Dig that lipsynch and the fact that, disturbingly, some of these guys look pretty close to the fashionistas of the moment (drummer and keyboard guy particularly) ... But the best still in store: 2.18.

I fucking love this song. It could make me cry, with its nostalgia-rich overtones of childhood car journeys.

And I bet Fieldvole will dig the video, pyrophiliac bibliothequarian that she is. So this one's for her.

Unplugged Hole

To wind up the ramshackle theme, let's take someone to whom the aforementioned adjective (relative to some of the things she's been called) is practically a compliment: Courtney Love.

Rebecca was kind enough to send me a link to the video embedded below. As she points out, Ms Love screams pretty impressively in this'n (compared to Cobain, her screaming is haphazard, often somewhat weak; but not here). She also looks a good deal better pre-plastic (or, at least, pre-quite-so-much-plastic – I know not which).

Bear with the song beyond the first minute or two, because it's a slow builder.

What's the verdict, O Heavy Soilers?

Grizzly Bear covers dead relative

Most of Grizzly Bear's album Yellow House was recorded in the (ramshackle) house of vocalist Ed Droste. Although the arrangements are fairly complex, and production is at times painstaking, it is still very much imbued with the feel of that house. So the album title is fitting.

Today's song of the day – Marla (download mp3 via YouSendIt) – is particularly interesting, having been written not by the band, but by Droste's great aunt – a "failed musician that [died] at an early age in the 1940s".

I'm not sure how many other bands have covered songs by deceased great aunts. Any offers?

Anyhow, this is rather a lovely, atmospheric, wearily melancholic song.

Listen to the creaks of the piano stool – and the woolly-yet-gongy tones of a damp old piano. There's a very nice subtle string arrangement, and all the ambient touches and subtly-mixed effects and sounds that are actually so hard to capture.

Beautiful shivery strings at 2.17 (and the way in which the figure is echoed by the piano subsequently).

Sombre Quirkiness From Scout Niblett

Miss Scout Niblett has deliberately (or at least, I assume it's deliberate) cultivated an aesthetic that exemplifies this week's theme (which is ramshackle, in case you weren't paying attention).

Ropey tuning, thunkingly misfingered guitar chords, lazy femCobainish vocals and sparse arrangements.

Today's song of the day, then, is Scout Niblett's So Much Love To Do (download mp3 via YouSendIt), from her 2001 album Sweet Heart Fever.

If the song doesn't charm you with its title alone, perhaps you'll fall for the key changes during the splendid "It's coming after me / So I'm coming after you" phrases, and the subsequent (unrepentant) dominant seventh chord.

The fact, really, that the whole song sounds a little like something that a beginner guitarist is strumming her way through from one of those 'teach yourself guitar' books. In a good way, dash it all.

The interesting thing about Scout Niblett is that, in someone else's hands, this song performed thus would sound like a joke. She manages consistently to strike the oh-so-delicate balance between 'quirky' and sombre. Nice triangulation, ma'am.

Kristin Hersh Sticks It To The Man

Kristin Hersh has been taking her engagingly perforated voice and nuanced guitar picking around fans' houses.

Eschewing the usual club touring (in an effort to "go back in musical time to before there was a music industry"), Hersh has taken a kick at the already tumbledown fourth wall separating performers from fans.

And her reasoning for doing so seems pretty sound to me:

"Normal people like music ... They don't need big corporations to tell them what music they like and they also don't need to jeopardize tomorrow's work day to drink expensive-cheap beer in the middle of the night in a rock club if that isn't their thing. They still like music."

Heavy Soil could scarcely agree more. The whole of Kristin's blog post is worth reading. And the video below – a performance of Deep Wilson "in Tom's backyard" – is today's song of the day.

Find more videos like this on Wild Vanilla

As someone has commented, the nocturnal sounds combine perfectly with the music. It's a pity the sound clips when she goes loud ... But how atmospheric.

Sunset Rubdown: 21st century troubadours

It doesn't take a conceptual leap of impenetrable genius to observe the connection between recent fiscal events and the legend of King Midas – whose wish that all he touched should turn to gold ultimately came back and kicked him up the arse (that's a direct translation from the Ancient Greek, you realise?).

Well, Friday's (ahem) song of the day is Sunset Rubdown's Magic v Midas (download mp3 via YouSendIt).

This is a fantastic song by an equally fantastic band (read my review of Random Spirit Lover, the album on which Magic vs Midas appears).

One of the album's more sedate songs (yes indeed), it is sparsely eloquent, with its confident use of silence and textural variety. Just as a fashion designer might be able to put together a mesmerising outfit composed of a multiplicity of contrasting yet complimentary fabrics, Sunset Rubdown understand how to make boldly contrasting types of sound work together.

The various parts (voice and instruments) move in a folksy kind of parallel, giving the impression of a messy Renaissance chorus: 21st century troubadours.

I like the rumbling drum rolls at around the 3-minute mark, ushering in a relentless yet reigned back accelerando, egged on by spurts of bloated-spider guitar ... And the spiraling snatches of melody, spinning like twigs in a circular current.

Great song; great album; great band. Heavy Soil endorses emphatically.

Opulent Bacharach and Costello

Painted From Memory, an albumsworth of collaboration between Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach, is goddamn fantastic. The two complement one another wonderfully.

Download 'God Give Me Strength' mp3 via YouSendIt

Instrumentation-wise, this is fairly opulent stuff: harp glissandi, velvety string lines, brass sections, et al. And the arching melodies and harmonic progressions are luxuriant. This is proper songwriting - the musical equivalent of an expensive clockwork watch, all its parts meticulously assembled.

Perhaps some will find it all a bit lavish, a bit put-together, a bit musicalesque. But Heavy Soil deems it very fine indeed.

Seriously, the whole album is brilliant.

May financiers everywhere find strength – God-given or otherwise – when their phones don't ring ... (And there you were thinking there was no link ... Oh ye faithless!)

Melancholia and deliberate chintz from Tindersticks

Download Tindersticks' Rented Rooms mp3 via yousendit

Here's a rather charmingly melancholic, deliberately chintzy song of the day (just look at the artwork of the album Curtains, on which the song features).

This song demonstrates nicely the way in which the simplest of chord changes can, if handled well, be very effective. The simple two-chord verse sequence is repeated again and again, so that the change at 1.20 – finally – to the chorus is incredibly satisfying harmonically. Thanks, Tindersticks, for making us wait so long for it.

Good string lines leading up to and immediately after the 2-minute mark: the way they clamber wearily to their top notes.

Myself, I'd shorten this song a little, were it mine: I feel the simplicity of the harmonies and melodies would be better served by a three-to-four-minute duration.

But let's not pick nits, eh?

Blur's weary, deadpan examination of America

Blur's self-titled 1997 album is probably the band's most interesting ... A good bit less Britpop irony; a good bit more Coxon-fuelled, alt-American-influenced guitarwork.

Today's song of the day, though, is one of the album's least experimental. But lyrically and melodically strong – and, of course, topical:

Look Inside America (listen free on last.fm)

Okay, so Damon Albarn is singing from the perspective of a weary touring musician – but these lyrics could easily enough apply to a credit crunched banker, could they not?

Good things about this song:

• A great lead guitar entry at around 0.24
  
• The fact that the string lines (which could in another manifestation be cheesy) are justified by the lyrics' talk of radio shows, tv ads and cinema classics, and is nicely lo-fi and weary
  
• Likewise the rather delightful harp cameo in the middle-8: another piece of superficially elaborate and flamboyant instrumentation incorporated skillfully into a downbeat, disillusioned ballad in such a way as to sound as gaudily insubstantial as neon-lit facades and back-to-back chatshows ...

Heavy Soil Session: Dimensions

Well, I am pleased to present the results of the first Heavy Soil session.

A song by me called Dimensions: dimensions.mp3 (right-click and choose 'save file as' to download)

In true session style (and to curb any perfectionist tendencies) the whole thing was recorded and mixed today (though the song was already written) - and arranged to feature, yes, the cello.

I like to think that the rough edges and slightly hamfisted mix all just add to the charm. Right?

I warmly cherish the hope that, in time to come, I will record sessions featuring musicians other than myself.

If you are a musician and fancy the notion of recording a song in a day for Heavy Soil – and if you find yourself within reach of Oxford, UK – email me, won'tcha?

PJ Harvey's got her leather boots on

So ... Following on from Rebecca's masterful encapsulation of PJ Harvey, last week (hey, Rebecca's all about masterful encapsulations, don'tcha know?), Ms Harvey today takes her turn on song of the day.

Hell, Heavy Soil could fill a month of posts with PJH songs of the day.

This time, we encounter cello as part of an ensemble: a sextet. Which is, I promise you, every bit as spicy as it sounds.

Download Mansize Sextet mp3 via YouSendIt

Crack this one on at high volume and let the neighbours know that CHAMBER MUSIC ROCKS.

It's Waltonesque, percussive, textured, atmospheric ... It ain't melodic, I'll admit. But who want melody, these days?

Tom Cora shreds that cello

Today: punk cello.

Tom Cora was an absolutely brilliant cellist who, sadly, died young. In today's song of the day, you get to hear him shredding every bit as well as any lead guitarist in his collaboration with The Ex:

Tom Cora and the Ex: State of Shock mp3 (right click and choose 'save as' to download) 

Notice how expertly he manipulates the tone of the instrument, within a single note going from buzzy, frictiony attack to harmonic – like a singer going from throaty chest voice to falsetto.

Modal melodies, trills and quarter-tone tuning one moment, chordal backing the next. Yes, that's a cello accompanying the verses. Anything a guitar can do, y'know ...

And keep with it for the closing solo, in which he goes mental. I like mental cello solos.

Thanks to Ricki (of Not Squares), who introduced me to the marvellous Mr Cora.

... And an aside: is that not a damn cool promo shot, up there?