Wilkommen, Bienvenue and welcome to this the second edition of discovery podcast, where I share some of the new music I have found over the past month. (You can find the first one here.)
These musical finds are the ‘cream’ of what I found in January. You can listen to the whole show, below, or skip down to the Spotify playlist.
To be honest there wasn’t much of a list by mid January, I had listened to a lot of new (to me) tracks but nothing really stood out. I trawled through one particular playlist and found all the songs to be the same ; breathy female singers that grunt more than let their voices soar. I also stumbled across some new songs of major artists that I had not expected to be good – Sober by Demi Lovato was a good example. Sadly she didn’t make the short list, but Lana Del Ray did.
I am always interested to understand more about the songs, including who wrote them and why. Once I have my short list, I start the process of research to compile the show. I’ve added these as track notes below.
Poisson Rouge
We opened the Poisson Rouge by Saint Privat from her 2007 album Super Flu. the song may not be new, but appears on the soundtrack for the Black Lively/Anna Kendrick movie ‘a Simple Favor’ that has just come out for home rental. The movie is stylish ‘whodunnit’ with a very chic soundtrack, which is worthy of your attention. A Simple Favor also makes it into my most of most fashionable movies.
Burning River
This song was from London songwriting duo, Ferris & Sylvester. This 2018 release cropped up on a ‘Long way from Nashville’ Spotify playlist and indeed it is a long way from Nashville. Around 4,200 miles – I checked.
Desert Raven
Taken from Jonathan Wilson‘s 2011 album Gentle Spirit. This song would not be out place on a Crosby Stills and Nash album which makes sense as his studio is based on Los Angeles Laurel Canyon, home to so many wonderful artists over the years and still an iconic LA Rock n’roll location.
The guitar work feels a lot like Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour which may be one of the reasons he was picked to tour with Roger Waters on his latest tour and album.
Madre Dolcissima
Zucchero is most famous outside his home country for the Paul Young collaboration Senza una donna, he is not an artist I would readily pick out. But I was caught by the intro giving us some context to what he was thinking about. It also echoed Simon & Garfunkel’s 7 O’clock news/Silent Night that had them singing over the nightly news.
Broadly the song translates to his struggles with with the world around us. A quick translation opens up the lyrics a little;
Nothing new
except the rent for me
that I find myself
and I repeat because
I no longer have a God
and I lost my soul
vague in the wind
but I go!
Mumma Save my Soul
This song also does a great job at keeping the passion without turning into another shorty Italian song that seems to be so beloved of that country.
Dat Mistige Rooie Beest
Jean-Baptiste Frédéric Isidor, Baron Thielemans known to his friends as Toots Thielman. The song title poorly translates as That Misty Red Beast, taken from his 1987 album Toots Thielman Live. Since the 50’s Toots has been the leading player of the Chromatic Harmonica in a jazz style. This song was a great introduction to his substantial catalogue of music.
Hope is a dangerous thing for a woman to have – But I have it
On first inspection this track sounds a lot like most other Lana Del Ray songs but the melancholy and delivery is always engaging and the title is something to make you think. Hope is a dangerous thing for a woman to have – But I have it.
Modigliani ( Lost in your eyes)
How can you tell that song was from the Eighties. You just can, I guess. As soon as I heard this track from Book of Love , I thought it felt Eighties, possibly lumping it in with a whole bunch of Eighties songs that wouldn’t stand out from each other. Until least year, I had never heard of the song or the band. So if you want a slice of Eighties pop, then check them out.
I think is referring to Amedeo Clemente Modigliani, an Italian Jewish painter and sculptor who worked France. Known for modern style portraits and nudes characterised by elongation of faces, necks, and figures.
Red Red Rose
Taken from the famous Robert Burns poem, My love is like a red red rose was interpreted and sung by New Yorker Madeleine McMillan. I ‘met’ Madeleine when wet connected on Instagram last year and I’ve enjoyed discovering get back catalogue and now this new release. She tells me the song wad Influenced by her Scottish father and her childhood of reading Burns poetry.
Blue Motorcycle
My daughter introduced me to this song by Moto Boy. Since she was tiny,
we’ve always shared new music that we’ve found. It started on the school run and continues even when she’s grown up and studying far away.
The song, Blue Motorcyle wouldn’t sound out of place on an eighties playlist, but appeared first on the 2018 soundtrack for the movie Videoman. No, I hadn’t heard of it, either but I had heard of the rebooted Serena Netflix show, which is where my daughter heard it.
Blue
I can’t remember where I heard this track but it feels right in amongst these retro numbers. It is in fact a 2019 release from California based ‘Synthesised Prog Rockers’ Bad Wave. For some reason I want to compare this to You by Ten Sharp.
Blue Slush
I was killing time in a Cardiff clothes shop when I gave across some local arts magazines at the back of the shop. These liked hyperlocal in their scope and home made. But in there was an interview with Cardiff band Neurotic Fiction. So I grabbed my phone and found them on Spotify. I was caught by this track from last year’s debut album Pulp Music. The define themselves as a ‘post punk group spread thin across the West Country. ‘. I think the track is great, the guitars sound like an REM track, which isn’t a bad thing in my book.
This song also completes an unintended tripe play of the word blue!
Trout
The last time I saw Neneh Cherry was on a celebrity cooking show. I hadn’t realised she is still recording. This track was taken from her 1992 album. ‘Homebrew‘. This song is very much collaborative effort, with The the unmistakable voice Michael Stipe supporting, a guitar riff from Steppenwolf’s The Pusher and John Bonham’s drums from Led Zeppelin’s When the Levee Breaks. It makes for A great track.
This year I have been pushing myself to find newly released music and emerging artists, not just keep trawling from the sixties and seventies. However, I still listen to a lot of ‘new’ old stuff and sometimes I come across songs I feel everyone else knows, but I missed it.
On every podcast, I always include one such song in a segment I call, ‘Late to the Party.’ Last month was Daddy Lessons from Beyonce and the Dixie Chicks, this month it is the Beatles.
Goodnight
The song, Goodnight was the final songs on The Beatles White Album. When I was at college, I borrowed my friend’s copy of this double album on CD. But he only had the first disc, not the second. So I knew all the big songs, Back in the USSR, Rocky Raccoon but never ever heard this.
And that concludes my second discovery.
