Hi-Fi Audio Ultra-Fi DIY Headphile Blog - Stereo-Untypical

Released 2006 on Lost Highway Records.

This is my favourite pop album of 2006. Another Fine Day is the 4th release from the loose collection of musicians known as Golden Smog. And it’s the first one I’ve really enjoyed, to be honest. With eight years elapsed since the last one, there probably was more curiosity than pent-up anticipation…lol.  Well, AFD proves that the group survives and lives. Nowadays the Smog is more or less led by Gary Louris, Kraig Jarret Johnson and Marc Perlman (all former Jayhawks), with Dan Murphy and bits of Jeff Tweedy rounding out the current personnel.  (Tweedy leads Wilco and Loose Fur… busy guy)

There is hardly a weak song among the 15 tracks presented here. The tunes are fairly adventurous, ranging from upbeat power pop numbers like ‘Corvette’ and ‘Hurricane’, to mellow folk-rockers, like ‘Listen Joe’, ‘Strangers’, and ‘Think About Yourself’. Other gems, like ‘Beautiful Mind’, and ‘Cure For This’, are harder to classify…let’s call them “excellent”.  This record just works.

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Kill To Get Crimson, Mark Knopfler (2007, Warner Bros)

It’s been a good year for new pop music, with excellent releases from Wilco, Interpol, The White Stripes, Feist, Ryan Adams, Radiohead and many others. At the top of my favorites pile sits this disc from an old master, the venerable Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits fame.

And it’s at once both strange and understandable that one has to qualify him with those 4 words. While Knopfler has never enjoyed the Straits’ level of commercial success in his solo work, he’s been far from obscure. Performing alongside stars like Bob Dylan and Emmylou Harris over the years, MK has long been respected as a musician; at some point while we weren’t noticing, he’s also evolved into a songwriter of quite compelling stature. Kill To Get Crimson is just the latest in a string of very fine work.

Like Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky, it took me a few listens to get into it. There’s nothing flashy about this record. It sets a plaintive, folksy-electric tone, with Knopfler mixing major and minor chord progressions effortlessly as always. The musicianship is excellent, as you’d expect. And the patient listener is gradually rewarded with more and more ‘gold’, as these beautifully crafted songs slowly unfold to reveal a remarkable depth and layering. No overhyped guitar work, no shouting. Knopfler is so understated, he’s the epitome of cool. Yet when his songs call for vocal passion (Let It All Go, In The Sky), he delivers it in spades. When heartaches and regret bear down like a weight (True Love Will Never Fade, Behind With The Rent), he’s able to convey the sadness with his signature voice - which has aged extremely well. Other standouts (We Can Get Wild, Heart Full Of Holes) are so good I won’t even attempt to redux them.

For me, a near perfect record…very enthusiastically recommended. I will update this review when I’ve received the vinyl copy, mastered by Stan Ricker.

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Released in 2006 by True North Records.

Speechless: The Instrumental Bruce Cockburn. This CD has 15 superb instrumental tracks; 3 of which are new, and one which was previously only released in Japan. That track, Rise And Fall, is one of the standouts, and is a great test of bottom-octave bass response. Cockburn was a music major, and has been making records since 1970. His status is iconic in Canada, where he lives and works. As a songwriter, Cockburn is never at a loss for something to say - and his instrumental compositions bear this out also. His guitar work breathes and lives; the tunes are original, diverse, and memorable. They convey a broad spectrum of color, from dark and ethereal, to bright and joyful. Cockburn is a folk singer/songwriter, but as a musician and composer he’s quite unbounded by categorization.  You’ll hear styles as far ranging as ragtime jazz, ECM 70s-era guitar jazz, and most everything in between.  All played with heart and gusto.

A wonderful set of performances, in excellent sound. The production work is very good on this disc; despite the recordings spanning four decades, the songs share a similar sound signature, and the album is cohesive and works as a whole.

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