An Antidote

As ramtops said, a thoroughly horrid day. That it could have been orders of magnitude worse is only a small consolation.

So.

After much poking at a long list, here are today’s list of my eight desert island albums, as inspired by oldbloke via blue_condition. The list will change in large part tomorrow, but that’s inevitable.

• Captain Beefheart Trout Mask Replica As blue_condition said, it has to be in there doesn’t it?


• Henry Cow In Praise of Learning It was a toss up between this and Unrest, but the splendid Living in the Heart of the Beast clenched it; that’s the piece of music that most often manifests spontaneously in the canyons of my mind these days.


• Easy Star All-Stars Dub Side of the Moon It’s not often that reworkings of classic albums are in just about every way finer than the original, but that’s the case here. Lovely stuff.


• The Planet Wilson Not Drowning But Waving The best band never to really come out of Hull, they were killed by Richard Branson (signed, first album with all the stuffing produced out of it did nothing). This is the indie label second album that captures at least some of the live energy from Hallam and Lou out of the Red Guitars, and Grant Ardis, one of the finest drummers I’ve heard to this day.


• Philip Glass Songs From Liquid Days What’s not to like? Great music and lyrics performed and sung by great musicians and singers. Essential.


• Frank Zappa Thing-Fish Picking a Zappa album ends up being pretty arbitrary, but this insanity is probably my favourite at the moment.


• Gravity Fred Frith Proof, it were needed, that avant-garde guitar stylings can be fun and only as much hard work as the listener feels like devoting to them. Makes me smile.


• Michelle Shocked Captain Swing This makes me smile too; a truly joyous collection of songs from one of the best things to have ever come out of East Texas. I need cheering up, damnit.