[louder]

 

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

today:
Peter Broggs "Jah Golden Throne"

and

Grateful Dead live at the Red Rocks Amphitheater August 30, 1978

both superb for different reasons entirely.

waiting patiently for the new Shannon Wright album "Mire" to come out sometime in March cuz the single sounds EPIC :/

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

t remains a source of great consternation at Wears The Trousers that Shannon Wright is not better known round these parts. Since going solo in 1999, she’s produced eight fantastic albums – 2000’s Maps Of Tacit being our particular favourite – each of them emotionally charged, impeccably played and lyrically cutting and raw. But as intense as she can get on record, the Shannon Wright live experience is something else altogether. At All Tomorrow’s Parties in 2007, curated by the Dirty Three, Shannon raised the roof at Pontins with a riveting, very physical performance – “I think I’m in love,” wrote one (male) reviewer – that amplified the sexuality and darkness at the heart of her music. “Oh my god!” Shannon says, laughing and cringing at the same time when I mention it. “I can’t remember what I was doing! I’d probably run and bury myself under a rug if I did.” For Shannon, part of the beauty of playing live is being able to get completely lost in the music. For as long as she can remember, the best gigs she’s been to have been the ones where the band play straight from the heart, or from the gut. “When you’re feeling it too, you get to experience something that you might never forget for the rest of your life; that’s what live music can do to us. So when I’m playing I just prefer to be as free as I can be. Sometimes technical things get in the way and that makes me pretty sad. I’d rather not be distracted.”
Despite her reputation for such blistering performances, it’s hard for Shannon to get over to the UK on a regular basis. Her fanbase in the rest of Europe is a dedicated one, especially in France where she has been heavily championed by the Vicious Circle label and released an album with French bestseller Yann Tiersen in 2005, so why isn’t Shannon as successful as she should be in Britain? The records are available, the music is superb, so, inevitably, the answer comes down to promotion. “I guess there’s not many people being a sort of cheerleader for me there,” says Shannon, “I’ve had a really great response when I have played, and when I’ve done the ATPs, but it’s kind of been a word of mouth thing most of the time.”
That could be about to change with Shannon having recently signed to the Brooklyn-based label Ernest Jenning Record Co. for her next album, the follow-up to 2010’s raucous Secret Blood [review], due in early 2013. At the time of our chat, Shannon reveals that the record is almost complete, bar “a few final things” and that she’s been holed up in Knoxville, Kentucky recording with Todd Cook (bass) and Kyle Crabtree (drums) of American post-hardcore band Shipping News. “It’s definitely more aggressive this time around: louder, heavier.” Heavier than Secret Blood? “I think so, yeah. There’s only one piano song this time.”
Anyone familiar with Shannon’s back catalogue will know that, lyrically, her focus has always been on interpersonal relationships and self-analysis – a common thread that makes her songs as relatable as they are by turns both tender and caustic. “It’s just what I have always written about; not necessarily my own story, but the stories that we all have,” Shannon explains. “In some ways, I don’t feel like I am writing lyrics that are particularly special, except that I am just hopeful that someone can connect with, and get something out of, what I’m saying or writing about. Not necessarily even be inspired by it, but just to connect.”
Throughout her career, Shannon’s music has been dogged with comparisons to PJ Harvey and, in its quieter moments, Cat Power. She’s been labelled as a ‘sadcore heroine’, someone whose albums are to be endured rather than enjoyed. And, just as with Polly and Chan before her, people have rushed to associate the fractured, raw emotionality of her music with her state of mind (“Her unhappiness is impossibly unrelenting,” read one review of 2004’s Over The Sun). “Sometimes I get really bummed out that people think I’m so angry,” said Shannon in a 2007 interview to promote the diverse and pointedly titled Let In The Light. “I’m just playing rock ‘n’ roll, just like anybody else […] I don’t think people really point that out with men…”

 

Still, for every person who just doesn’t get her, there’s another who sees past the lazy comparisons and the disproportionate, sometimes sexist focus on her feelings over her musicianship. Shannon’s biggest critic, though, is herself. “You can always second guess yourself, always reflect on something you’ve done. I can be very self-critical, especially when I do a large show. I’m always really, really nervous because I really care about it. I care that people have made an effort to come to the shows – it means a lot to me – so that can be hard sometimes, if I walk away feeling like I didn’t get my ideas across. Sometimes I’ll feel like I didn’t do as well as I could have.”
Right now, though, Shannon is content and excited. Progress on the new album has surprised even her. “I’m really happy with all the songs. They’re different from what I’ve done before, maybe in small ways to others but I think it’s kind of interesting,” she explains. “And, I have to say, I’m happy with each song for different reasons – a song structure here, a guitar part there, a melody – so I would definitely have to say I’m probably more excited about this record than any other in a long time.” She laughs. “Of course, that could change next week, you know?”
And it’s not just the new songs that have taken Shannon by surprise. She may listen back to her old records and hear only things that she would have done differently in hindsight, but she still feels a connection with the songs on a gut level. While rehearsing for her ATP set this coming weekend, Shannon had one of those strange moments when she realised that a song she’d written eight years beforehand (she doesn’t say which) was, lyrically, extremely current. “It was an interesting feeling, to realise that I related to the song as if it was new. I’d never thought of making these connections in that way, for whatever reason, until then.”
The more we talk, the more our conversation underlines the fact that Shannon really belongs and thrives on the stage. With every album she makes these days, it seems she goes through a period of doubting whether she will ever make another one. Never once does it occur to her to not go out on the road and play. Her records may be like time capsules, but on stage the songs are allowed to fluctuate and morph, to become “a completely different beast”. “I enjoy recording and playing equally, I think. Both are just as fun, just as intense, in different ways. But I would have to try really hard to just play the songs as they are on the records. I recently realised that there are certain parts of songs that I’m so used to playing live that I’d forgotten they aren’t played on the record. So yeah, that’s hard not to do, actually.”
Comparing the road-worn version of ‘Heavy Crown’ on Maps Of Tacit with the one released just a year earlier on her solo debut, Flightsafety, is proof that Shannon has always worked in this way. She can’t help but work from previously unseen angles, and to feel free to be able to do it. I’m sure I’m not the only one who would love to have a record of reworked older songs as she hears them now, but it seems a quite unlikely proposition. One thing’s for certain though, don’t expect Shannon to ever return to the mid-‘90s jangly indie-pop of her former band Crowsdell. “Oh god!” she says, laughing out loud. “I play guitar so differently now, it would be impossible for me to go back to that. I was like a little tiny baby then!”
On those terms then, the Shannon Wright of 2012 is a sophisticated grown-up; a wild, unpredictable, sophisticated grown-up. Listen. Be convinced. Just don’t call her angry.

http://wearsthetrousers.com/2012/11/...nterview-2012/

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Bytor, I'm so GLAD you dig it, I was just going to recommend it to you on the Last Album You Purchased Thread. You should order that album when it comes out March 18, it is sounding like it might be almost as epic as Dyed In The Wool, Over The Sun, or Sacred Blood!! I can't promote Shannon Wright enough, she just doesn't ever seem to gain enough traction even with such superb music :/

[E. Noisefield]

 

[sonic sphere]

 

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

I've decided that Redman is the Frank Zappa of rap. Music that it is so damned funny you completely forget how both serious and even substantive it is as social commentary

As for the moment,

Sleater-Kinney "Get Up"

[sonic sphere]

 

[EVOLghost]

The best motherfucking Chiyo Okumura playlist...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4NvBBy_5T0&list=PLezbNpyiyYKoLlV63SVQ5bZU FaPnDXpe6

[Torn Curtain]

Echo & the Bunnymen - Ocean rain

[sonic sphere]

 

[Ghostchase]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIzPi4JcJ84

Best find on Youtube of all time... Jim O'Rourke sings Enka! (A Japanese style of singing!)

What the heck? Bearded Jim?

[Antagon]

 

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by Ghostchase

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIzPi4JcJ84

Best find on Youtube of all time... Jim O'Rourke sings Enka! (A Japanese style of singing!)

What the heck? Bearded Jim?

Don't diss the beard, but Japanese speaking Jim is much more trippy to me than his beard. And that Japanese guy is a dick! Aren't they playing live? How the fuck is he going to keep stopping the show to correct Jim like that? No wonder Japanese people are so stressed the fuck out all the time..

[louder]

 

 

 

[Ghostchase]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

Don't diss the beard, but Japanese speaking Jim is much more trippy to me than his beard. And that Japanese guy is a dick! Aren't they playing live? How the fuck is he going to keep stopping the show to correct Jim like that? No wonder Japanese people are so stressed the fuck out all the time..

Sorry, it just makes him look really old. Yeah I wasn't sure if was he was being a dick, or that's the whole show's purpose, to teach foreigners how "properly" sing Enka. I'm impressed how functional Jim's language is, as I'm a inspiring Japanese student.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by Ghostchase

Sorry, it just makes him look really old. Yeah I wasn't sure if was he was being a dick, or that's the whole show's purpose, to teach foreigners how "properly" sing Enka. I'm impressed how functional Jim's language is, as I'm a inspiring Japanese student.

Being old makes Jim look old, age is either something you deny or you embrace, I'd say Jim is rocking it

[Antagon]

Bauhaus - All We Ever Wanted Was Everything

[Torn Curtain]

Nina Simone - Wild is the wind

[sonic sphere]