My Dearest Farq
Your recent criticism of one's lyric writing gave one much "food for thought"! At first one "bridled" at having one's genius dragged "across the coals", but subsequent rumination revealed you to be "spot on"! Hélas! One is no lyric writer! The "eccentricity" much vaunted by one's fans is nothing but whimsical trickery to cover up the fact one has nothing to say! This revelation - thanks to you - came with Biblical force, and has led to a complete change of approach! One rushed "headlong" into the studio to record a long-playing record without lyrics! No singing, no words, just the MUSIC coming through one like one was an antelope licking Marmite off a bus seat! WHOOPS! There one goes again!
Anyway, please accept this copy of one's latest recording with the greatest of thanks! Hope you like one's new direction!
Ever thine,
Robyn
(PS Were you my fag at dear old Winkie?)
@320, and no, I ain't heard it yet.
ReplyDeletehttps://workupload.com/file/aKc6MvueVp7
Hey!! Neither have I!!! About to be rectified quite soon !!! (Crux of the cookie??)
DeleteThanks for the preview. I got'ta say this is excellent. - useo
ReplyDeleteI gave a less than stellar (but still complimentary) review to his last album, and tagged him on Twitter. Shortly thereafter he tweeted something about "if you do your best and people don't like it etc." Anyway, this one's a gem.
ReplyDeleteI read your piece, Wardo, larvely work as always. The album, though ... it's okay. He's no John Fahey, though. He's no Bert Jansch or Robbie Basho or Leo Kottke or Sandy Bull or ... he's just an okay guitarist. The album is very much up to the standard of most new releases in its sheer ... okay-ness. At least, it made me listen to The Yellow Princess again, so I'm grateful for that.
DeleteWell, I do like his other instrumentals. He's a better picker than I am.
DeleteGee Whiz -- cut the poor sod some slack; he wrote, recorded, mixed, mastered, pressed, marketed and distributed this album in the span of just two weeks after being publicly called out here. That feat alone deserves some kudos. If he had taken another week just think of what he could have accomplished!
DeleteHe needed Reg Presley to sprinkle some fuckin' fairy dust on it, you ax me.
DeleteThank you. I like Robyn actually. Unironically. BTW who DID you fag for in public school?
ReplyDeleteYes, most people canvassed for the Do You Like Robyn? poll replied in the affirmative. Likability is not his problem. I don't dislike him - what kind of person could dislike him?
DeleteI went to grammar school, me. Day school, no boarders, and no fagging.
Aww. Oh well. At any rate, I listened to the album. Kind of pointless without the empty, cleverish lyrics. BTW am I allowed to say that I curate and present a internet 'radio' program of very clever music indeed? It is all about extreme listening from episode to episode but doesn't provide info on organisations to help you recover after. Please give it a chance. Give quiche a chance.
Deletehttps://www.mixcloud.com/Amadeus99/e-35-altered-states/
Thank you
We-ell ... okay then. I'm loin-girding!
Delete‘The album is very much up to the standard of most new releases in its sheer ... okay-ness.’
ReplyDeleteIs this because we have access to so much new music these days that we don’t devote as much time to replay an album over and over as we used to? There have been some releases that for reasons of ‘life getting in the way’ I’ve just forgotten to play again after maybe only one listen, then a few months later I notice it again on my music device.
Back in the days of vinyl/cassette and cd the album might physically sit in the player for days or weeks, (I used to have a ‘playing this month’ stack of records that stayed in place by the player until such a time as I decided a record could go up on the shelf). Now I do know that digital music playing devices have features to tell you what you played recently, but there’s so much music and not enough time.
One group right now I’m investigating and devoting some time to are called Unloved, but the thing is I’m not sure. This is a good thing, if I’m not sure and dismiss the album I may be missing an album that had I devoted more time to would become a favourite, I’m going to give this album another few plays. One of my favourite albums of all time is Talk Talk - Spirit of Eden, when I first heard it I thought WTF are they doing? It took many spins to ‘get it’.
Sorry to go on, enough.
Don't apologise for "going on". It's why we're here. I don't think broad access is the reason why so few new albums "stick". I can't be alone in knowing in a pretty short space of time if I'll want to let the album play to the end, look forward to hearing it again, or toss it into the trash. It's always been like that. This doesn't mean I have to instantly like it. I can hear something worthwhile and want to come back to it. So few new albums escape the trash bin I rarely listen to them any more. They weren't recorded with me in mind, which is fair enough. I still have thousands of albums that sift through my shuffle, or I listen to as an album. I've been listening to some of them for nearly sixty years, and the magic's still there. Let us know how you get on with Unloved!
DeleteYeah, but the sheer vast amount of EVERYTHING must be having some effect on how things stick with us. It's hard to imagine falling in love with an album the way I did when I was 12 and only had five or six albums...and one of 'em was a double album of Ravi Shankar's Festival From India. I played that over and over, and some of that must simply have been there was nothing else to play. Six years later, with a 100 LPs, I don't think I had any more time for Thumri in Mishra Khamaj, Tal Keherwa (4 Beats).
DeleteI'm 67 today. Got Beatles '65 on the box. Yes, the butchered American release (but not, come to think of it, the "butcher cover.") Listening to George's country-inflected picking, there's a case for the Beatles being proto-countryrock, too. :)
George? Good call! Big Chet Atkins fan. See "All My Loving".
DeleteI'm with you - the sheer mass of "new" music (not just new, but also exhumed) means that much of it just gets ignored. there aren't enough hours in the day for everyone to hear it all. Now, things were never like that, but they almost were. There was a common core of albums that were heard by a large number of people.
As for RH's new album, as much as I love the guy's music, you can't win them all.
The "common core" thing is great. But that common core was much thicker, larger, than a handful of albums, wasn't it?
DeleteAlthough the idea that the contemporary Blonde On Blonde or Sticky Fingers or whatever is out there, just not visible in the massive volume of new releases, is attractive and positive I'm not buying it. Today's common core is more diffuse, not more diverse, and an average standard of musicianship and creativity is all it ever attains. Everything is average, even when it's well-played. Nobody's breaking out of the "okay".
well I read all that everyone said here & after buying those robin Hitchhike first few things & a bit of sofboys and were talking about when they came out, it only took about 25 plays before the Emperors new Clothes Syndrome kicked in.
ReplyDeleteHis films were quite good but then he had a guy called Herrmann doing the music didnt he? .....................................................
ReplyDeleteYou're thinking of Alfred E. Newmann.
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