October Music

Music I’ve bought in October.

I haven’t really bought that many albums this months, but then again, I was in London for almost two weeks. Which was a lot of fun — I went to half a dozen concerts. And what’s fun at concerts in London is that they often have opening acts that are 1) pretty good and 2) I’ve never heard of before.

Like Merope (who opened for Sam Amidon (who was great (and brought Beth Orton on stage for a couple of songs (which was fun)))). Merope are from Lithuania and played some strange-looking but great-sounding instruments. I’m enjoying the first album I bought a lot…

Crayola Lectern opened for Heidi Berry (who I’ve only seen once before — in 1993), and they also had lots of strange-looking instruments. I really enjoyed their show, and the first track on the album I bought (click above to listen to) is pretty nifty — but it was better live. I think the programmed drum sounds kind of let it down?

Let’s see… anything else? Oh, yeah, I bought an album by Emma Tricca (who opened for/played with Bridget St. John (who was great)), but I see that I’ve forgotten to rip it! So it’ll be in next month’s post. *gasp*

Anything else… Oh, right:

Like I mentioned, I saw Heidi Berry in 1993, and that was at the Thirteen Year Itch festival (for 4AD), and at the same festival I saw Brendan Perry’s first solo show. (He’s mostly famous for being in Dead Can Dance.) And I was completely blown away by the concert, and was waiting for the album… which didn’t arrive until 1999, and only had one song in common with the concert. I was so disappointed. But 4AD have finally released the ICA concert (as bonus tracks on the aforementioned album), and I’ve been listening to them quite a bit the last few days. I wasn’t wrong back then — that was an amazing concert, and he should just have gone into the studio and recorded that batch of songs.

But the best album of the month is the new Lost Girls album. The first half of it is absolutely amazing. (The last half is only merely pretty good.)

Oh! And:

The Greatest Hits album by Marvin Pontiac, which is really John Lurie, and it’s not a greatest hits album, but it’s chock full of great tunes.

Oh oh oh, and:

The album from Peter Broderick & Ensemble 0 doing Arthur Russel’s Tower of Meaning (and more) is amazing.

So not that many albums this month, but a lot of real bangers — so many totally excellent albums.