Digging My Scene

I haven’t done a great deal this weekend but the onus has been on relaxin’ and rechargin’ after a hectic few weeks. I have made a bit of an effort to play stuff on my MP3 player that I have neglected and hardly, if ever, listened to. The default setting seems to have been ‘Sufjan Stevens, Go-Betweens or Shack’ recently. Yesterday I lay on the bed and played Elliot Smith’s From a Basement on the Hill all the way through for the first time. I dug (sorry, I’m running out of synonyms for ‘enjoyed’ on these pages) its strong sense of melody, and, bearing in mind the artist’s alleged suicide, reflected on the dark-at-times lyrical content and dug that too. I’ll return to it. I think D is a fan. Today I lay down in our new tent – frankly, I’ve been rendering myself supine on a fairly regular basis – and dug Scritti Politti’s Early, a collection of, believe it or not, early songs by the group. This is an uneasy listen but the stop-start, staccato riddims and the quirky sound collages, although challenging, are compelling and worthwhile. I think I fell asleep for a few tracks though. I also tried the first quarter of The Bravery’s eponymous debut. I read a review somewhere that compared this New York band to early New Order but the mumbled delivery and lo-fi swagger reminded me of The Strokes’ debut recording, Is This It. It was satisfactory.

At a car-boot sale this morning I bought three CDs, Liquid Skin and Bring It On by Gomez and Enjoy Melodic Sunshine by Cosmic Rough Riders. They only cost me one and a half English pounds each and all three are albums I have read about and wondered about and felt I might fancy owning. I’m playing Bring It On as I pen these paragraphs and sense ‘a grower’ that I’ll eventually really appreciate and possibly, heck, dig.