Rachel Verinder
Well-known member
Don't know about top tens, but my absolute favourite record at the moment is Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow by the Bill Fay Group. Recorded in fitful sessions between 1978-81, but only now released - and only the third album of original material to be released by Fay in almost 40 years of music making - this is an astonishing record of painfully-earned Olympian calm; the missing AoR link between Gilbert O'Sullivan and Elliott Smith, the missing avant-pop link between David Ackles and Talk Talk. The opening song "Strange Stairway" is in itself sufficient to make me want to pause, or exit, from living for a moment or 14. Phenomenal work by the younger Gary Smith on guitar, and as with Fay's other two albums, liable to go off on askew improvisational tangents at a moment's notice. "Planet Earth Daytime" is like a Wings single hijacked by David Peel and Sonny Sharrock halfway.
In other news, that new Polar Bear record is pretty ace; not quite the Centipede-meets-Tortoise chimera as stated by Morley in his OMM review, but kind of like George Russell getting diverted into Venetian Snares.
I'm also very impressed by Trio With Interludes, the new (and beautifully packaged) CD by Evan Parker, John Coxon, Ashley Wales and Mark Sanders, which with its mixture of snarling improv and dislocating electronica, actuallly conjures up a picture of what the Miles of On The Corner and Get Up With It might have sounded like had he taken Dave Holland's advice and hired Parker in his band.
In other news, that new Polar Bear record is pretty ace; not quite the Centipede-meets-Tortoise chimera as stated by Morley in his OMM review, but kind of like George Russell getting diverted into Venetian Snares.
I'm also very impressed by Trio With Interludes, the new (and beautifully packaged) CD by Evan Parker, John Coxon, Ashley Wales and Mark Sanders, which with its mixture of snarling improv and dislocating electronica, actuallly conjures up a picture of what the Miles of On The Corner and Get Up With It might have sounded like had he taken Dave Holland's advice and hired Parker in his band.