ALBUM OF THE YEAR - SHORT-LIST .... ALBUM #7 - July 2020



Lou Barlow released his solo debut in 2005, entitled Emoh (which is Home backwards - has anyone told Lou?). Yet it wins July 2020 Album of the month? Well, it was reissued on 31 July 2020, and especially since I didn't have it before, I feel its a worthy winner. Its a gentle, mainly acoustic album, apparently heavily referencing Lou's recent divorce. 

My attempts at seeing Lou live have been frankly awful. This year, I had tickets and would have seen Sebadoh. I also had tickets for Dinosaur Jr in 2016, which was cancelled due to band illness - they returned in July 2017, but that overlapped with summer holiday (so missed it, as well as Pixies in Cambridge Junction). So, yet to have the pleasure of seeing any of Dinosaur Jr (J doing a solo show in 2018 again during my summer holiday just to complete the collection of missed gigs) 

Lou seems a good egg, living and breathing music and art and is extremely prolific. I definitely have graduated from a Dinosaur Jr focus (where he tends to have a couple of his songs, which he writes and sings, per album), onto Sebadoh, and now his solo stuff (of which there is a lot, and this is my starting point, so since Bandcamp Fridays are going to continue into 2021, I think I will pick up some more)

During 2021, Lou has played plenty of house shows, all free (but tips are welcome!), and this was recorded to celebrate the album re-issue. 




Songs from the album, a couple of tasters to try to convince you ...  






The original track listing : 


The re-release adds some demo's : 



I didn't really have alternative album choices this month .. there were some releases I had an eye on, that might in the future make me wish I had picked them , notably from  Fountaines D.C., and The Beths, but since gigs in Milan are cancelled/postponed or unlikely, I've not bought them or given them enough time yet .. both have gigs in Milan scheduled next year, so lets see, if they play I might go, and therefore invest some time on those albums.

Next up : its Sept.... well, it should be August ... anyone got any suggestions for Albums released in August 2020 ? 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
 Wedding Present albums duke it out  This is a work in progress. At some point, it will definitely include all the studio albums of The Wedding Present. And maybe Cinerama. And maybe B-side compilations. Doubtful I will include all the live stuff, radio sessions etc - have to draw the line somewhere *Take Fountain is technically 11 tracks. I gave On Ramp a One, and it skewed the results a lot. I'm glad its track one, I can skip it as I put the CD on. To me, its 30 seconds for silence, with 1.5 mins of a humming noise... not sure if its my CD, people seem to like this, but I suspect its in a frequency audible only to dogs.... so I am scoring it as a 10 track album - my rules .... I am kind of looking at my CD versions generally - so Valentina doesn't include the stunning 4 track 'book' tracks ...  George Best Everyone Think’s He Looks Daft – 8 What Did Your Last Servant Die Of? - 8 Don’t Be So Hard – 8 A Million Miles – 10 All This and More – 7 My Favourite Dress – 9 Sha...
Read more
Image
  ALBUM OF THE YEAR - SHORT-LIST .... ALBUM #13 - The 'wildcard' of  2020 I knew what I was getting into here. There were so many great albums coming out in the first six months of 2020, that the idea of 'an album a month' for the whole of 2020 seemed feasible. It worked out a bit harder to choose one every month (see August) than I thought, but it was also harder to pick only one some months. Especially March. March was mad...  The winner, if you recall, was Lewsberg. No regrets. However, for Slow Readers Club, Morrissey, and Baxter Dury, they all released great albums in March, and were unlucky not to get picked. That leads us to Mr Malkmus. His third album (all very different) in 3 years is the winner of my bonus slot on the albums of the year list.  Just to repeat, its his third album in three year, all very different musically, but his voice and lyrics bring them together. That alone is worthy of recognition, but its a lovely album in its own right. The title re...
Read more
Image
 ALBUM OF THE YEAR - SHORT-LIST .... ALBUM #5 - May 2020 This might be a short entry ...  I don't have a whole lot to write about this band ... I've never seen them live , although I have heard them faintly... they played the 'bar' stage at the annual Wedding Present Brighton August festival (ATEOTS) in 2018 ... its a nice bar but not really ideal for live music and I decided to stay at the front of the main stage after Salad so I could say hello to Young Romance. I have no regrets, but if this album had been released then, I think I would have pushed into the crowds and braved the squeeze to see Jetstream Pony. So I have some regrets, I guess... This photo is taken just a couple of hours after hearing them ... Me in my Pip Blom t-shirt, well before their first album was out (told you I was hip, didn't I?) I got this album, pre-ordered as a digital download from Bandcamp on a Bandcamp friday, and actually released to me to download a week before the announced releas...
Read more