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Adam's Shelf of Things What are Great
Here's where, in no particular order, I shall be wittering on about all the things that I think are great and worthy of your valuable time. As the title of the page suggests, it'll be mostly things that fit on a shelf. I haven't put links to any shops where you can buy these fine items, but they're all easy enough to find.
News from the Shelf
(01/09/2011) Currently in my CD player you'll find:
The Shelf Itself... Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman I have very little idea what this book is about but I love it. I read it whilst on holiday in The Lakes about five years ago and got totally lost in it. Very dark in its own way.
Yes's 90125 The bit in Owner of a Lonely Heart where it drops down to the double tracked clear guitars is possibliy my favourite moment of guitar playing ever. Strangely, this is the album that sounds most like all those great Roger Dean covers, beautiful fantasy music, but its the only one that hasn't got one! Changes and Leave It are both great tracks.
James Horner's Willow OST Yes, more soundtracks to 1980s fantasy films, but when you're eight years old in 1988 it all feels a bit special. I bought this in 2007 and have listened to it hundreds of times since, mostly during winter. There's a bit when the orchetra drops down to just two french horns which makes me shiver with happiness even still. Horner has produced many more famous scores, but this is the most special.
Robert Fripp's A Blessing of Tears I think this is perfect. Time just stands still when I'm listening to this. Who'd have thought MIDI guitar was the answer to all the world's troubles?
Robert Fripp and the League of Crafty Guitarists' Intergalactic Boogie Express I first heard this after buying a Discipline Global Mobile sampler called Sometimes God Hides (which is worth hearing as well) in 1999 and I don't think its going too far to say that it changed my life. I remember sitting in my horrible little room in university halls watching snow fall through the window in the middle of the night and being rooted to the spot by Fragments of Skylab, Eye of the Needle and Asturias. Guitar Craft followed not long after and everything changed even more.
Freak Kitchen's Move I love this album, its the perfect mix of style and technique. This is the way metal is meant to be: Clear, intelligent, measured, bright, outward-looking, Swedish...
Mark Knopfler's solo albums I liked Dire Straits well enough when I was learning guitar and, like many rock players, had good fun jamming Money for Nothing and Brothers in Arms. However, Knopfler's solo albums are just beautiful, although they seem to fly under the radar mostly. The last three, Get Lucky, Kill to Get Crimson and Shangri La are without a duff track between them. He seems to have settled on a kind of heavily 50s and 60s influenced Americana, which rather loses most rock guitar players, but really does it for me. One critic described it as 'egoless', which I like. Before Gas and TV, Heart Full of Holes, The Fish and The Bird and Back to Tupelo really are world class songs.
Clive Barker's Weaveworld The movie world has tended towards Barker's more explicitly nasty stories, but this one is a wonderful read. I read it when I was about seventeen and got totally lost in it. Its about a universe woven into a carpet and its eventual unweaving. At one point the central characters enter the Orchard of Lemuel Lo, this is where my track Lo's Orchard comes from.
Jekyll (BBC Drama) This is a rather strange one-off drama in a field all its own. James Nesbit is fantastic as both lead characters and is one of my favourite actors. It also stars the bewitching Gina Bellman and another quite unique British actor, Paterson Joseph. He was also in Neverwhere and Greenwing.
King Crimson's B'Boom. This is a 2-CD live recording of the double-trio King Crimson in Argentina on the Thrak tour. Not only is this my favourite live album, probably by any band, but its also one of the most powerful recorded musical statements out there. Its so dry and clear and complex, but not complex in the standard way of being 'fast and heavy as possible' which is becoming the norm for prog-metal. Performances of Red, Frame by Frame, Indiscipline and Vrooom Vrooom amongst others are just so unequivocal.
It Bites' Once Around The World. One of my oldest and strongest musical memories is hearing Yellow Christian from this album when I was about ten yeas old. Nobody sounds like It Bites and seventeen years of guitar playing still hasn't prepared me for those guitar parts. They're rather uncool now, but Frank Dunnery played and sung some of the most challenging yet musical material I've ever heard. Plastic Dreamer has one of my favourite guitar solos and Black December is a really great pop song. Seek it out music lovers...
Howard Shore's Lord of the Rings Scores. I'm a big fan of Tolkien and Peter Jackson's films anyway, but Shore's music is just leagues ahead of anyone else. Any aspirations I have towards orchestral writing have their roots in this music. Its thrilling for me that even after seventeen years of studying music I still don't feel even vaguely qualified to attempt music like this...I'll get there one day.
Allan Holdsworth's The Wardenclyffe Tower. As with Zappa, you either get Allan Holdsworth or you don't. I do and its wonderful! I can't really play any of his music as I'd have to give up playing anything normal and start again...and what would be the point in that when he does it so well. There's lots of great records, but this one has the most tension in it for me. Chad Wackerman is spotless as always and Allan's harmonic construction is at its most focused.
Arvo Part's Kanon Pokajanen. Every winter I find myself returning to this stunning piece of music and am transfixed by its focus and stillness. As a look further down this list will confirm, I am not a religious person and do not 'understand' the text used, but there is no denying the power of this music.
Frank Zappa's You Are What You Is. There's so many Zappa albums it takes a real fan a lifetime to get to know them all properly. This is the first one I ever owned and its such a tight collection of songs, with some of the most moving social comment I've heard in rock music. Zappa doesn't try to reach you with sentiment, he just beats you round the head with the truth. With Zappa you either get it or you don't...
Pink Floyd's The Division Bell. I'm sure all the Waters and Barrett fans will go spare at the inclusion of this one, but I love it. Its so warm and grand and full of the sonic and textural qualities that have shaped my musical world since it came out in 1994. Also, I saw them play at Earl's Court in October of that year when some lovely family friends took me along with a spare ticket. I count that as one of the greatest things in my life to date...and that's Ely Cathedral in the background, which I went past on the train this very day (22/06/2007).
Robert Rankin's The Antipope. All his books are great and this is the first one. Easy reading, but you get sucked into his world of half-cut Brentford dwellers battling the forces of darkness between trips to the pub. There are six or seven of his books that have been released as audiobooks. These are even better than the books. I first read one of Robert's books years ago and it was completely lost on me, but then I heard him reading a different one and suddenly it was brilliant. He paces all the jokes and odd turns of phrases so perfectly.
Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveller. Some say he's not as subtle as contemporaries like Jorge Louis Borges or Georges Perec, but this book is wonderful. Once you've read that try Cosmicomics: Anyone who can write a book where a piece of dust is the central character gets my vote.
Steve Vai's Passion & Warfare. Still the greatest guitar record of all time. So much is going on here in terms of composing, arranging and performing I'm still hearing new things in it 20 years later. It astounds me that other artists have releases so much dross since this record came out in 1991 (yep, I include myself in this!). There are plenty of other wonderful guitar albums but this one is still the most perfect. Its a shame that his next album, Sex and Religion has remained so underrated. Steve's playing on that record was even better, just not so broad in its appeal.
Bellini's Leonardo Loredan, Doge of Venice (1501-1505) The only painting in this little list, although there could have been others. Go and see this in the National Portrait Gallery, London, its got more charisma that most of Hollywood...but it won't fit on your self. It was moved quite recently and isn't in quite as good a spot as it used to be, but don't let that stop you.
Hans Zimmer's The Thin Red Line & Galdiator Scores. Truly fearsome orchestral writing, especially the painfully atmospheric Journey to the Line and Strength and Honour. I believe The Thin Red Line is one of the few scores written before the film was made. Galdiator is the one where Zimmer got it all right in one go. Stunning.
Channel 4's Greenwing. Mental. Beautiful. Silly. Made total sense to British twenty-somethings like me, might not mean anything anywhere else in the world. Just two series and a Christmas special, they quit while they were ahead, which is rear in itself. Mark Heap, seen here playing the recorder in his pants, is becoming one of Britain's comedy icons.
Philip Pullman's Northern Lights. More atmosphere that is healthy. The first and strongest in this stunning trilogy. If I could invent the musical equivalent of a demon I'd be laughing. I once heard him lecture and read from another of his books; a great communicator and he's a teacher from Norwich like me! The recent film of this book, under the American title, sadly doesn't really come close enough to expressing the force of the ideas Pullman is dealing with.
Richard Thompson's Mirror Blue. All his solo albums are amazing. Listening to Richard's songs, one gets the unsettling impression of being in the presence of true greatness. The depth and clarity in his writing is a lesson for musicians in any style. I could have picked any of his output but this one is particularly special.
David Bowie's Outside. This is just excellent. Bowie goes even further beyond what he knows how to do. One of the few 'concept' records of the 1990s, its got some stunning songs, including We Prick You and Heart's Filthy Lesson and all hangs on an outline futuristic murder plot thingy. Only my brother and I seem to like this album, but give it a try, its out there hiding in plain sight.
Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion. If you're a total atheist like me then this book won't tell you anything you didn't already know. However, I found it gave me a much broader understanding of the arguments. Its also a great way into scientific reading and has lead to my reading all sorts of stuff I wouldn't have tackled once upon a time. You have to nail your colours to the mast sometime.
Ridley Scott's Legend. A magic film from the 1980s all about demons and goblins and unicorns and stuff. What more could you want? Make sure you find the version with the Tangerine Dream soundtrack. This may mean a return to video...but well worth it. Tim Curry's performance as Darkness is wonderful.
Mr Mister's Welcome to the Real World: Its true that stuff from your childhood just sticks in your brain and will not leave. I remember listening to this album whilst playing with Lego on the Kitchen floor! I don't think I have my Lego anymore, but this album still gets played now and again. The tunes and arrangements are very 80s, but the 1980s was when some of the tightest arranging was done, maybe something to do with all those MIDI sequencers. Ten of the coolest songs on record. Broken Wings was the single but there's some other stunning songs, Uniform of Youth especially. The drummer is Pat Mastelotto, who later went on to joint King Crimson.
Well, that's all for now. However, I shall return one day with more examples of greatness.
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