Monday Long Song

My online presence has been lower than ever during 2024, which I'm sure has helped me to end up in a better place mentally than at any time over the previous few years, though it's had the knock-on effect of having a drastically reduced engagement with the blogging community. I'd like to find a way to ease my way back into the game to some extent in 2025, if I'm at all able. I'll certainly give it a go anyhow.

Meanwhile, a handful of my favourite albums of 2024 have only put in an appearance very late in proceedings. Indeed one of them hasn't actually arrived yet and another isn't even scheduled for a physical release until March, but more of that in due course, all being well. Looming large in my heart and ears over the past couple of months has been 'The Way Out of Easy', a new double LP from Jeff Parker & ETA IVtet. Parker is perhaps most widely known as the guitarist with Tortoise since the late 1990s, though he's a prolific collaborator, having worked with the likes of Isotope 217, Joshua Abrams and Bill Callahan over the years.

The four side-long tunes on 'The Way Out of Easy' were recorded in a single day and although largely improvised, exhibit a meandering accessibility, thanks to an unhurried inter-band familiarity between the four musicians involved. It's a sublime thing.

Wishing you and yours a happy, peaceful festive season, however you choose to spend it.

Jeff Parker &ETA IVtet - Freakadelic

Version City #43 - Tortoise & Bonnie 'Prince' Billy sing Elton John

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy and Tortoise have each made individual appearances on these pages in the past, though the 2006 LP, 'The Brave and the Bold', finds their talents combined. The 10 tracks on the album are all cover versions of artists who range from the familiar (Bruce Springsteen, Richard Thompson), to the obscure (Lungfish, Quix*o*tic), to the unexpected (Don Williams, Melanie Safka). Here's the highlight of the whole shebang for me though, a spooky reading of Elton John's 'Daniel'.

55 From 55 - 1995

55 songs in 55 days - one for every year of my life...so far. 

Belting out 'Powderfinger' and 'Mr Soul' during a Neil Young tribute night.

By 1995 I'd been through Madchester, Rave and Grunge, now Brit-Pop was at its peak. I didn't know it at the time, but my shop was riding the crest of its final wave. Business would never be this good again.

 A few surviving ticket stubs from the year in question.

1995 was the year I first stumbled upon Chicago post-rockers Tortoise, via a marvelous 12" single 'Gamera'. The following year the band would release their groundbreaking 2nd LP, 'Millions Now Living Will Never Die' and they are currently working on their 7th studio album.