last night an amazing thread came up on ilm.
the basic premise of the thread was : if you had a choice would you live the rest of your life listening only to music already recorded , or would you prefer to forsake history, and just live in the here and now and listen only to new music from hereon.
the thread went off in all sorts of directions and was a fascinating thought masher. so, after some careful deliberation over last nights supper, i decided to plump for the history option. after all, there is no way could i live without my archive. i need my on-u sound system collection, i need my teenage memories via my madness records, my masters of noise/hip hop crush collision from leeds, age of chance, the twisted funk of shriekback, elo, and of course my beloved $tateside reissues, to name but a very select few.
so i dropped my vote on the past option thinking that i could quite easily live without hearing new music.
and then this album arrived today making me totally reappraise my rash decision.
kat flint is a young folk singer of mad professor blood and is currently getting her online fanbase to help fund her recordings.
hang on, back up, folk based singer songwriter kat flint getting a mention on singer songwriter hating website ireallylovemusic !?
what the fuck ?
well, i don’t know why, but there is something about kat’s rich beautiful voice, the stripped back, but deep instrumentation that is just so warm and welcoming, it literally stopped me in my tracks (ie the all too necessary household chores) and made me listen to the album without a break.
twice.
the melodies, and the subtle touches in the production that make the songs drift ever so slightly off the beaten path of expectation, all blended together in such a way to make kat’s 12 songs that little bit more interesting than the singer songwriter genre normally dictates. whether that involves a the kazoo chorus (anticlimax), a hidden overheard conversation (the blinking), or, the joyous piano chord change at 1 minute 19 seconds of album opener go faster stripes, the faraway trumpet and vocal layers during lazybones, or the marching rhythm and choral part that kicks in during the emotional overload that is, christopher you’re a soldier now, (about watching your brother head off to war) etc etc. in fact there are so many quirky treats littered throughout the 54 minutes, that i could quite easily list any of the songs as a highlight.
by the third listen, i came to realise that this is not an album to distract oneself while wasting time on a bus, or to make your wine-n-cheese party swing, but an album to actually listen to, properly.
and in my world, such albums are few and far between.
now, i fully realise that in 2008 there is a glut of girls with guitars and songs, all trying to get your pocket money. i have even heard a few of these major label funded projects, but not once have i felt the urge to spread the love, as "it’s just not my kind of thing". thankfully, dirty birds has swept aside such a narrow minded attitude.
thank you kat for my favourite, unexpected treat of 2008.
video : go faster stripes
more detail : here