» Listings for 2024

1. 2023/4 Albums Thing 259 - Laura Nyro “Eli And The Thirteenth Confession”

   Posted on 10:00am Tuesday 23rd Jan 2024

   Laura Nyro was a singer and songwriter from New York. The 5th Dimension had hits with her songs (“Stoned Soul Picnic”) as did Blood Sweat & Tears (“And When I Die”) and Barbra Streisand (“Stoney End”). Ironically Nyro’s best selling single was a cover of Goffin and King’s “Up On The Roof”. Much of the appreciation for her has come posthumously as she succumbed to cancer is 1997.

   Hers was a name I’d heard but I knew absolutely nothing about her until one of my regular customers, Nigel, asked me one day if I’d heard her song “Eli’s Comin’”. I had to admit I hadn’t. Nigel offered that as a soul fan I should have a listen. So I did, the first 40 seconds didn’t exactly endear me to it being in the main the dreaded vocal gymnastics (why sing one note when 27 will do !) but then in it bangs and suddenly we have soulful dancefloor shaker which I’ve played out when DJ’ing often and very often to a reaction of “WHAT IS THAT !”. There was actually a copy of this album in the shop at the time I first heard “Eli’s Comin’” and, as a quick search revealed, 7” copies change hands for 4 figures that album now lives at home with me.

   The rest of the album is all written by Nyro. It features possibly her best known song, “Stoned Soul Picnic”, (a US #3 hit for the 5th Dimension as I mentioned earlier). It’s an album that has a lot of elements of soul about it but it’s not Soul music. There’s parallels with Joni Mitchell, I’m guessing Tori Amos is perhaps a big fan and I can’t help thinking of Steely Dan when listening to this. I don’t mean this as a criticism but this is grown up music, this ain’t something you’re going nuts over when you’re 14, I needed to be older before I even got close to understanding music like this. There’s soul and blues and jazz in here, crazy tempo changes and a lot of vocal gymnastics but I find it strangely attractive. 

   Eli’s Comin’ - https://youtu.be/SaFD-s66VG8?si=kKAz3QsIy1rC2mSd

2. 2023/4 Albums Thing 258 - Gary Numan “Intruder”

   Posted on 9:50am Saturday 20th Jan 2024

   The follow up to “Savage…” and it was very much the lovely red vinyl Indie store exclusive that convinced me to buy it. It’s not a bad record, there are good songs in here, my only quibble would be that it really is part 2 of its predecessor, you could put almost any of these songs on “Savage…”, and vice versa, and they wouldn’t be too out of place

   Again it’s a concept album with the premise being the Earth has had enough of humanity (some days I know how it feels). Numan explained “Essentially, it [Earth] considers humankind to be a virus attacking the planet. Climate change is the undeniable sign of the Earth saying enough is enough, and finally doing what it needs to do to get rid of us, and explaining why it feels it has to do it “…cheery huh ? The original idea came from a poem written by his daughter Echo and two more of his daughters, Raven and Persia, sing backing vocals on the album.

   The song titles start to tell the story “Betrayed”, “I Am Screaming”, “Is This World Not Enough”, “And It Breaks Me Again”. Thematically it’s a direct follow on from “Savage…” whose post apocalyptic setting is now causing the planet to bite back. If you play the two records back to back, which I often do in the shop, they are two halves of the same idea. But here on “Intruder” those big “Savage…” metal guitars are buried much further back in the mix (even though both records were mixed by the same people) which gives the overall sound less punch to my ears. I’m not saying this is a bad record, I really do like it, but I think the difference might be that this one just doesn’t have the quality of songs that “Savage…” has. 

   If you have any knowledge of Gary Numan over the years then you know what you’re getting here. Yes the influence of Berlin era Bowie, and John Foxx’s Ultravox! hangs heavy over what he does but it’s not done in a plagiaristic way, Gary knows where he’s coming from and he’s doing alright at it thank you. If you like it, you like it, if not there’ll always be something else along reet soon.

   And It Breaks Me Again - https://youtu.be/Gd7dsGwkUzU?si=TBz7pKjWHVwWMNgf

3. 2023/4 Albums Thing 257 - Gary Numan “Savage: Songs From A Broken World”

   Posted on 9:35am Friday 19th Jan 2024

   There we were one Sunday morning, sitting in bed, supping coffee, being kicked by the dogs trying to get comfy under the covers and perusing the interweb, I believe in Scotland it was known as hurkle-durkling, as we do. I came across a link on social media to a new track by Gary Numan called my “My Name Is Ruin”. It explained it was from his new album “Savage” and that one of his daughters sang on it. I hadn’t listened to Gary Numan in years. I’d been a big fan of Tubeway Army and my brother was particularly taken with his early solo records “The Pleasure Principle” and “Telekon” but inbetween, apart from the singles “We Are Glass” and “I Die You Die”, I hadn’t really paid him much mind. OK let’s have a listen…bloodyfeckinghell that’s fantastic…and that’s how I came to buy this album.

   This was a revelation. I’d read in places that Numan had been name-checked as an influence on Depeche Mode (obviously) and others like Nine Inch Nails and Rammstein but this was the first time I’d heard it, and it was almost in reverse as this to me sounded like Nine Inch Nails and Rammstein (not the other way around if you get what I’m getting at). It was built from sequencers and big metal guitars and windswept sounding, desolate futurama. I also need to ask Erica (see last post) how much Numan she likes as there’s definitely common ground between “Savage…” and “Dark Music From A Warm Place”.

   “Savage…” is a concept album in which Eastern and Western cultures have intermingled in a desert covered, post-apocalyptic world. “The songs are about the things that people do in such a harsh and terrifying environment…It's about a desperate need to survive and they do awful things in order to do so” the singer explained in interview.

   That first song I heard online, “My Name Is Ruin”, could be heard as the album in one song. Rumbling synths, Gary singing over a rhythm track on the verses and then boom…here come piercing synths and the big metal guitars with the lift for the chorus. It’s bloody great and to be honest Gazza’s sound hasn’t changed so much since I was incessantly listening to “Replicas”, the technology that he uses has improved which gives him chance to do things now how he likely wanted them done 40 years ago (remember that thing with Kraftwerk wrestling with technology until it caught up with their ambitions).

   My only gripe with this album is the song “And It All Began With You”, the chorus of which effectively lifts the main melody from the chorus of “Wicked Games” by Chris Isaak and I’m really surprised no-one pulled him up about it during the sessions. It’s a small gripe but one that needs airing.

   I watched a BBC documentary about Gary Numan a few of years ago, it may well have been around the making of this album I don’t rightly recall, but the one thing that came over in the film was that he is a genuinely good guy, a really nice fella, so this latter day renaissance for him is something I can only wish him well with. I’ll keep a closer ear on him from now on.

   My Name Is Ruin - https://youtu.be/lHomCiPFknY?si=Cs6EPOlqpUgAulwX