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ventaYesterday, a parcel arrived from me from New Zealand. A few weeks ago, I finally gave up hope of ever finding The Front Lawn's albums in the UK, and ordered them from an NZ mail order company.
Songs From The Front Lawn, their first album, is one of my favourite records ever, being a series of delightfully whimsical lounge-style songs. My tape copy of it is ill, so I haven't heard it in some time, and so have had the joy of rediscovering all the songs on it.
The Front Lawn (and all the mates they roped in to play on various tracks) are very fine musicians, but the arrangements are deliberately kept light to avoid being overpowering. It's very much an evening album, chilled out and quiet, with many of the songs verging on the melancholy.
Disappointingly, the album's reduced to the status of only near-genuis, because among nine brilliant tracks is one track which is so unforgivably, unlistenably bad (in my opinion :) that it's acutely painful. It's one of the very few tracks I'll deliberately skip over every time I listen to an album.
I've also got the less familiar More Songs From The Front Lawn (I didn't say they were good at album titles...). Not quite as good, and definitely deserving of the word "odd" in places. How's this for a summary of a song (from the sleevenotes):
Roy, finally reconciled with his son Graeme's insanity, marries him to the washing machine he adores.
It still occasionally hits the level of the first album, and has brought back fond memories of walking down Queen Street in Auckland, with Felix, singing Queen Street at the tops of our voices, scaring passers-by. Oh, and I've finally placed the fragment of melody I've had in my head for a couple of years - it's A Good Address, so apologies to anyone I randomly hummed at in my quest to identify it.
The third album was Churn by Shihad, who are most notable for having changed their name recently (to Pacifier) because they wanted to break America and thought Shihad sounded too much like Jihad :) Despite being an old-ish album, it's really quite nu-metal in sound. I also don't think it's actually the one I wanted; must ask Felix which album I was aiming for...
Update: Following a couple of requests, since SFTFL is unfindable here, does anyone want to offer me a chunk of webspace I can ftp the mp3s to?
Songs From The Front Lawn, their first album, is one of my favourite records ever, being a series of delightfully whimsical lounge-style songs. My tape copy of it is ill, so I haven't heard it in some time, and so have had the joy of rediscovering all the songs on it.
The Front Lawn (and all the mates they roped in to play on various tracks) are very fine musicians, but the arrangements are deliberately kept light to avoid being overpowering. It's very much an evening album, chilled out and quiet, with many of the songs verging on the melancholy.
Disappointingly, the album's reduced to the status of only near-genuis, because among nine brilliant tracks is one track which is so unforgivably, unlistenably bad (in my opinion :) that it's acutely painful. It's one of the very few tracks I'll deliberately skip over every time I listen to an album.
I've also got the less familiar More Songs From The Front Lawn (I didn't say they were good at album titles...). Not quite as good, and definitely deserving of the word "odd" in places. How's this for a summary of a song (from the sleevenotes):
Roy, finally reconciled with his son Graeme's insanity, marries him to the washing machine he adores.
It still occasionally hits the level of the first album, and has brought back fond memories of walking down Queen Street in Auckland, with Felix, singing Queen Street at the tops of our voices, scaring passers-by. Oh, and I've finally placed the fragment of melody I've had in my head for a couple of years - it's A Good Address, so apologies to anyone I randomly hummed at in my quest to identify it.
The third album was Churn by Shihad, who are most notable for having changed their name recently (to Pacifier) because they wanted to break America and thought Shihad sounded too much like Jihad :) Despite being an old-ish album, it's really quite nu-metal in sound. I also don't think it's actually the one I wanted; must ask Felix which album I was aiming for...
Update: Following a couple of requests, since SFTFL is unfindable here, does anyone want to offer me a chunk of webspace I can ftp the mp3s to?
no subject
Date: 2003-12-09 03:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-09 03:46 am (UTC)I can mail you a track or two if your mailserver won't barf at ~4Mb files.
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Date: 2003-12-09 04:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-09 04:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-09 04:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-09 04:55 am (UTC)OK, that'll require me working out how to persuade CDCopy to re-rip... Give me a fortnight or so, I'll get back to you.
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Date: 2003-12-09 05:04 am (UTC)64kbps sounded bloody awful, by the way. Trying 96...
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Date: 2003-12-09 05:33 am (UTC)IIIII remember, back in myyyy day ... taping off FM radio was considered the height of bootleg quality. That would be about what one gets out of 64kbps.
I've played 96kbps in nightclubs and gotten clean away with it. 56kbps is pushing it, though.
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Date: 2003-12-09 04:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-10 11:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-10 01:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-10 04:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-11 03:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-11 03:40 pm (UTC)