» Listings for 2024

1. 2023/4 Albums Thing 265 - Beagle “Sound On Sound”

   Posted on 9:30am Thursday 1st Feb 2024

   Another out of order recent find for you (last one for a while)…I don’t recall who first clued me in to Beagle. It was definitely in the mid 90’s when I was working at Birmingham Airport because I remember listening to them (and Things Of Stone And Wood who sadly have never had a release on vinyl) endlessly on my walk in to start the early shift. It would have been one of that international group of CD swappers I’ve talked about before, I suspect most likely it was David Smith in New Jersey but could easily have been Curtis Malasky elsewhere in the US, it was definitely one of the Americans because that’s where my CD copies came from when I had them. Whoever it was, thanx, they’ve been occasional companions ever since and hearing them always puts a smile on my face and a spring in my step.

   Beagle were an alternative pop band formed at university in Lund, Sweden in 1990. They released just 2 LP’s “Sound On Sound” in 1992 and “Within” in 1993 (I still need to track down a copy of that one). The two main players were songwriters Magnus Börjeson and Daniel Sandström, who between them wrote every song on Beagle’s two albums. This 1992 Swedish issue I’ve acquired also contains a song, “Crap” (!), that wasn’t on the CD copy I had so I get to hear new Beagle music after all these years.

   So what do they sound like ? This is pure, joyous pop music made with acoustic guitars, fiddles, mandolins, keybpards and the like. It’s NOT folk music it’s most definitely pop, great songs with singalong choruses and nagging tunes that get lodged in your head and won’t shift. If I had to compare them to anyone you’d know to give you some vague idea of where this is coming from then think of that record “Breakfast At Tiffany’s” by Deep Blue Something, but (and it's a big BUT) Beagle are so, so much better than that. This is uplifting happy pop music, it’s not gonna change the world or tell you anything deep and philosophical but they brighten my day whenever I hear them.

   And So It Goes On - https://youtu.be/NteuM38sDLY?si=DWCVNYkxibs_rkhW

2. 2023/4 Albums Thing 264 - The Orgone Box “Confectionary”

   Posted on 9:30am Wednesday 31st Jan 2024

   Back in 1994 sometime I was lazing at home with MTV on (in those long-lost, far-off days when MTV actually played music) and on came this amazing song. The band were called Orange and the song was “Judy Over The Rainbow”. I rushed out the very next day and bought a copy and to this day it remains a huge favourite and one of the great lost singles of the 1990’s. If only “the kids” had picked up on Orange and not some other band beginning with O around then the musical world of the 90’s could have been a very different and consequently better place. “Judy Over The Rainbow” was to be Orange’s only release and they promptly disappeared. 

   Thanx to the development of the Internet since then I would occasionally look for any other shred of info about them and eventually turned up that Orange was basically songwriter Rick Corcoran from Sheffield. I also found out he had formed another band called The Orgone Box who released a CD in Japan in 1996 that was almost impossible to find. Then, very recently, I discovered that a small Indie label in Tunbridge Wells had re-issued it on Green vinyl and here it is.

   I dropped the needle for the first time with great trepidation thinking “this is either gonna be majestic or shite”. Well, it’s neither. It’s certainly no “Judy Over The Rainbow” (even though there is a version of that song on here) but it is a million miles from being shite. Imagine if you would that prime ’67 Syd Barrettt had made a collaboration album with Jellyfish while all of them had spent a lot of time listening to the Dukes of Stratosphear while living in a flat in Liverpool and you’ll be somewhere close to where The Orgone Box are coming from.

   Opener “Hello Central...Give Me Ganymede” and final track “Ticket With No Return” both fit that last paragraph’s description perfectly (while also being the best two songs on the record), a twangy 60’s guitar riff, strange lyrics and an overall pop-psyche feel that naggingly feels like it should come from Liverpool but doesn’t. It’s all less than perfectly recorded, a lot of the tracks have the feel of demo’s about them, in fact if you played me this albums version of “Judy Over The Rainbow” and told me it was a demo by Orange, I’d believe that. Rick Corcoran seemingly hated the major label experience and the recording processes that came with it. After recording “Judy Over The Rainbow” with Orange I’ve read he walked away from his major deal, borrowed some basic recording equipment and that’s where these recordings spring from.

   I can’t help but feel that we all missed out on something of a talent when Rick Corcoran walked away from Orange and the music biz but so long as he was happy making these low key/low-fi-ish recordings then who am I to question him ? Have a listen to the two versions of “Judy Over The Rainbow” and forever wonder why it wasn’t a huge success…

   Judy Over The Rainbow (Orgone Box) - https://youtu.be/L5nl8aW1v4s?si=NdJRSp1yg1zbRs4L

   Judy Over The Rainbow (Orange) - https://youtu.be/UjRzr7p0reU?si=J200GbBYb2a2KS8F

3. 2023/4 Albums Thing 263 - Okkervil River “In The Rainbow Rain”

   Posted on 9:35am Tuesday 30th Jan 2024

   Okkervil River’s most recent release which I acquired because 1) I like them 2) it was there, and 3) it’s on very pretty Purple marbled vinyl. Released in 2018, they had released another 5 albums between “The Stand Ins” and this one including one with former 13th Floor Elevator Roky Erikson.

   As noted before, singer and main songwriter Will Sheff has a fragile kind of voice and a warped sense of lyric writing, on this album there’s definitely a flavour of Jonathan Richman about some of Sheff’s delivery. First song “Famous Tracheotonics” is about himself and various other celebrities, Gary Coleman (the actor from “Diff'rent Strokes” if you were wondering), Mary Wells, Dylan Thomas, Ray Davies, who have all had tracheotomies. It also features a musical steal from The Kinks “Waterloo Sunset” as Ray Davies experience with this particular medical procedure indirectly inspired that wonderful song.

   I’m honestly struggling with how to describe Okkervil River to you. Wikipedia tags them as being Indie, Folk and Alternative rock, none of those are wrong, but you could also tag them as Americana on the level of this being obviously American music rather than countrified which is what Americana has come to represent. Yet this album features wide use of synthesisers, electronic percussion and processed guitars and I can’t help feeling the influence of Bowie on them (listen to the Sax on “The Dream And The Light” it’s pure asthmatic Bowie Sax). They’re not an easy band to pin down, which I guess is what makes them interesting to me.

   Pulled Up The Ribbon - https://youtu.be/PZ7bMUsOu7w?si=p1DIMtNdsY75PKAN