Mark Kozelek Sings Favourites
Genre: easy listening, lounge, covers
Favourite tracks: 'Send in the Clowns', 'I'm Not in Love', 'Mainstreet', 'Get Along Home Cindy', 'Float On'
I make no secret of my adoration for Mark Kozelek, especially his output over the past few years. As a songwriter he's top class, notable for weaving fleshed out stories into his lyrics. This latest release, however, is an album of covers taking a range of songs and reimagining them as solely piano and vocal arrangements with a lounge atmosphere.
In his work as Sun Kil Moon, Kozelek is not exactly known for his vocal chops or technical singing ability but rather the content of the songs themselves. While these covers obviously lack his own personal touch in their writing, Kozelek really plays to the strengths of his vocal ability, even if that ability is not particularly varied. Paired with the careful piano arrangements, the vocal performances still manage to convey the same sense of sincerity, melancholy, and raw emotion we expect from Kozelek. That is the real strength of this collection of covers, especially on the tracks that are pretty standard arrangements of songs that have been done to death many times before.
Despite being a pretty straight up and down collection of covers, this album works brilliantly as a comforting listen from its warm version of jazz standard 'Send in the Clowns' to the slow, relaxing cover of Modest Mouse's 'Float On'. It's a bit self indulgent and occasionally offers up a cover that is unimaginative but hey, these are still great songs performed in a particular way that really strikes a certain mood and feeling.
You can listen to 'Send in the Clowns' here:
Shook - Continuum
Genre: electronic, jazz
Favourite tracks: 'Infinite', 'Remember', 'Tidal', 'Traces', 'Within', 'Don't Worry, It's Okay'
I've played through this one a bunch of times this past month and have really enjoyed the occasionally frenetic but well composed piano and synth based sound Shook has created. At times it's very intimate and evocative while also offering some pretty lively tracks with a bit of a Daft Punk and general chill house vibe.
The technical and jazzy piano playing is the driving force behind this album, backed up by wide synths and drums that elevate the compositions and give them a grand sense of scale.While most of the tracks build these spacey soundscapes there's still enough of a groove to grab on to and carry you along. It's very free flowing and melodically infectious with each track leaning on a very similar atmosphere but still sounding like distinct parts of a whole unified project.
This is the kind of album you can crank up and just lose yourself in. It makes great music to play in the background or just kick back and relax.
You can listen to 'Remember' here:
Nothing - Tired of Tomorrow
Genre: alternative rock, shoegaze, noise rock, post-grunge
Favourite tracks: 'Fever Queen', 'Vertigo Flowers', 'A.C.D. (Abcessive Compulsive Disorder)', 'Nineteen Ninety Heaven', 'Curse of the Sun', 'Tired of Tomorrow'
I've given this one a decent amount of time but despite the better songs I can't really call it solid the whole way through. The noisey walls of sound that underpin this whole album carry their own level of intensity and are broken up by some melodic lead guitar lines and riffs but it also leaves the weaker tracks on the album feeling too similar to be memorable in any way.
When it comes together I really like the noisy, shoegazy (is that a word? it is now) thing Nothing has going on. It's infused with enough solid musical ideas to not get bogged down in the sometimes sludgy wall of sound and reverb the band is throwing together. It manages to bring the right kind of intensity to these songs and the band knows when to pare it back to suit individual songs. The soft, dreamy vocals too often feel like the weak point on this album, not because they are soft and dreamy but because they are always soft and dreamy and never vary to fit the intensity of the instrumentals.
At their core the songs carry some pretty poppy hooks and it seems as though the band is trying to hide some of the weaker ideas and more predictable chord progressions behind the noisey aesthetic, but there are some solid songs to be found on this album.
You can listen to 'Fever Queen' here:
That'll do it for this month. Hope you enjoyed this selection of lesser known albums from the last month.
Have nice day :)
