Monday Long Song

I watched one of those YouTube ranking videos recently, where the artist under the microscope was Neil Young and it struck me then how much of his later output I just don't know. Sure, Young's back catalogue has been swelled even further in recent years thanks to his ongoing Archive series, but I'm talking about the actual studio albums - I didn't even recognise the titles of many of the 21st century records. Boy am I out of touch.

A brief flick through his discography reveals exactly when I got off the Neil bus - curiously, it was immediately following two of my favourites of all his albums, 1994's 'Sleeps With Angels' and 'Mirror Ball', the Pearl Jam collaboration from the following year. Then there's a long, oblivious, gap until 2014's lovely low-fi experiment 'A Letter Home' and after that another 15 or so studio albums that I have absolutely no knowledge of. 

I'm no Pearl Jam fan, but 'Mirror Ball' really worked for me - I even sang a couple of songs from the album at a local Neil Young covers show at the time. Where 'Mirror Ball' rocks, its predecessor, 'Sleeps With Angels', provides a sombre counterpoint (save for the abysmal, aptly titled, 'Piece of Crap'), the highlight of which is the magnificent 'Change Your Mind'.  

Change Your Mind

Monday Long Song

Released 53 years ago today, 'Faust IV' was, remarkably, the band's third LP of 1973. I (along with many of my age group I suspect) originally bumped into Faust via 'The Faust Tapes', a budget (49p!) album issued five months earlier, that my Glam-infused brain struggled to make head or tails of initially and was latterly, accurately, described by Wire magazine as showcasing '...sonic collage at its best...' Also released in 1973 was 'Outside the Dream Syndicate', Faust's fabulous collaboration with Tony Conrad, an album that I didn't actually hear for the first time until I was significantly longer in the tooth.

'Faust IV' kicks off with the epic droning 'Krautrock', running just shy of 12 minutes. When an expanded reissue of the album appeared in 2006, an equally lengthy, though slightly more abrasive Peel Session recording of 'Krautrock' was among the extra tracks and it's that particular version I offer here.

Krautrock