hissyfit: What I Did on My Holidays/My Top 10 Albums of the Year

Monday, 30 December 2013

What I Did on My Holidays/My Top 10 Albums of the Year

I've just got back from a Xmas break in North Wales. We went with neighbour's Des and Louise, to their family bolt hole, a cozy cottage with sea view in Rhiw, on the Llyn peninsular.
It was my first time in the area and surely not the last. It's like the Yorkshire Dales by the sea; spectacularly beautiful yet austere, no frills, built to last. We had plenty of sunshine but also found ourselves in 'The Storm of the Century' on Boxing Day when nearby Aberdaron (1 mile away) recorded gales of 110 mph. Thank God for the dulling effects of alcohol; we should have been crapping it. Anyway, we had a hoot despite our host and games master Des contracting tonsilitis on Xmas day. As you can see we still managed a fine time...
Endure my holiday photos to find my Top 10 albums of 2014 listed below...

Meanwhile; I've been compiling my tracks of the year CD.
If you want a copy the rules are simple:
Send me your Tracks of the Year CD to:
Trevor Jones
18 The Green
Wooburn Green
BUCKS HP10 0EF
Include your address and I'll return my Tracks of the Year CD to you.
Here's a clue of what you might get; my Top 10 albums of the Year.
Excuse lack of verbiage but I've got washing and ironing to attend to...

Prefab Sprout: Crimson/Red
Fossil Collective: Tell Where I Lie
KT Tunstall: Invisible Empire
Bill Callahan: Dream River
Emiliana Torrini: Tookah
John Fullbright: From the Ground Up
Jason Isbell: Southeastern (Thanks Macwood)
Sam Baker: Say Grace
Josh Ritter: The Beast in it's Tracks
Michael Kiwanuka: Home Again
David Lang: Death Speaks

That's eleven I know but David Lang's gloriously grim album has just arrived and it's sublime.

14 comments:

Anonymous30 December 2013 at 16:14
Ive got 2 of those and both jr and ps would feature high up on my top 10 . Will send you a cd ( minus mm track!)
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Meetwood Flac30 December 2013 at 17:26
Some nice sounds in there Mr Jones. Your usual downbeat selection. Still waiting for a bit of disco or HI - NRG :) - thought I'd see Denison Witmer in there. We agree on quite a few in 2013 - Bill Callahan almost made my list but was a bit too much like the previous 2 albums. Looking forward to Michael Kiwanuka's next album just to prove he's not a flash in the pan. Sam Baker needs further investigation as I've only seen a few of his songs on Youtube. But I'll check out Emilana & David Lang. It's been a good year for new music and I'm hoping 2014 will be more of the same. And there's always Bob to rely on. of course. Oh, and some dodgy artist called Jones. :)
By the way, like the photos, especially the one with the pipes :)
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Hissyfit30 December 2013 at 19:00
Look forward to it David; your taste is impeccable...
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Barryx30 December 2013 at 20:55
None of my best of 2013 are from those albums Trev, should be an interesting swap!
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Séamus Duggan31 December 2013 at 00:16
Hi Trev, I'm far too out of step to have a Top 10 from 2013 but I do have a compilation of what I'm currently listening to which I made for some friends. Must burn another copy and send it to you..
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Anonymous31 December 2013 at 19:47
I've only Prefab Sprout from your list so I look forward to listening to your choices.
A Happy New Year to you
Phil
Tel Aviv
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Tim Patrick2 January 2014 at 06:47
Late to the party...

My TOP 10 of 2013...

MIRACLE MILE - IN CASSIDY'S CARE
PREFAB SPROUT - CRIMSON RED
CAMERA OBSCURA - DESIRE LINES
MUTUAL BENEFIT - LOVE'S CRUSHING DIAMOND
THE LONE BELLOW - THE LONE BELLOW
DENISON WITMER - DENISON WITMER
JOSEPH ARTHUR - THE BALLAD OF BOOGIE CHRIST
LOCAL NATIVES - HUMMINGBIRD
JOSH RITTER - BEAST IN ITS TRACKS
PATTY GRIFFIN - AMERICAN KID
LIGHTSHIPS - ELECTRIC CABLES (actually 2012 - thanks Tel Aviv Phil)

Lovely photos. Myrna had a good laugh at your anatomically correct apron....

Happy New Year Trev. Can't wait for the new album!
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Tim Patrick3 January 2014 at 07:08
Phil has caught me out... Yup, Lloyd Cole not on my list. As a long time fan, I'm feeling kinda like Judas. I don't know what is wrong with me? Glowing reviews by everybody else, but somehow the last two LC records just haven't connected with me. Glad I didn't particpate in the fan-funding scheme, shelling out $100 in advance. Still sticks in my craw as a tad greedy...

Cool to see your list Phil. Several there I'll have to investigate. Hope you're doing well. Miss the regular conversation!
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‘Jones’ is Trevor Jones; principle songwriter with the critically acclaimed duo Miracle Mile, where he works alongside collaborator, arranger and musical partner Marcus Cliffe. Together they have produced nine albums, the latest of which was 2012’s ‘In Cassidy’s Care’, rated ‘Album of the Month’ by HiFi News, with respected journalist Johnny Black noting that Miracle Mile were “far and away the most unfairly unsung musical wizards ever to emerge from this sceptered isle. Big on memorable tunes wrapped around honest-to-goodness emotionally involving lyrics.”

Trevor Jones has also previously produced four solo albums: ‘Hopeland’ (2009), ‘Keepers’, (2010), ‘To the Bone’ (2014) and ‘Happy Blue’ (2016). Co-produced again with Marcus Cliffe, ‘Carver’s Law is another triumph of intimacy.
Previous critical acclaim for Trevor Jones:

“Gorgeous, as ever. Trevor Jones finds the poetry in real life; gently beautiful and genuinely moving. You may cry.” The Sunday Times

“Masterpieces of subtlety and observation clothed in sumptuous, lush melodies.” R2

“Jones is in a class of one. Near-perfect explorations of the human heart. The beauty on offer here is enough to make you weep. It did me.” Americana UK

“Achingly tender.” Folk Radio UK

“Intellectually as well as emotionally engaging.” MOJO

"Meticulously orchestrated, careful and complex, this is canny songwriting leavened by bona fide humanity." Q

“Moves you to tears and refreshes the soul. Scintillating.” Maverick

"Gentle enchantment. The loveliest melodies you've ever heard.” Uncut

“Classic pop songwriting, gorgeously realised. Jones has compiled possibly the finest catalogue of adult pop. Gently beautiful and genuinely moving” The Times

Miracle Mile: A User's Guide by Johnny Black

Despite being based in a home studio in a rural backwater on the outskirts of West London, Miracle Mile chose to name themselves after a fictional gold rush main street half a world away where, according to adventure yarn spinner Jack London, ragged 49ers would blow their hard-won nuggets on booze and broads.
They apply a similarly unorthodox approach to their career in general. The band’s core duo of singer/guitarist Trevor Jones and multi-instrumentalist/arranger Marcus Cliffe have been relentless in their pursuit of the perfect song. Not the fastest, the gnarliest or the loudest, not even the most instantly commercial, but the song whose melody, lyrics, arrangement, performance and spirit might stand the test of time, giving pleasure to listeners not just for years but centuries.
They’d be the first to admit they haven’t yet found that perfect song and maybe never will, but I’d argue that their albums — the documentary evidence of that search — deserve a place alongside the best work of time-tested tunesmiths as elevated as Randy Newman, Elvis Costello or Tom Waits.

Marcus Cliffe wasn’t yet on board when the first album, Bicycle Thieves, arrived in 1997 but already it was evident that frontman Jones didn’t fit in with the prevailing mode. There was no rage, bitterness or self-loathing in his songs and nothing at all turned up to eleven. Instead, he offered meticulously orchestrated slices of ordinary human life, transforming the mundane into the marvellous with carefully crafted lyrics sincerely delivered. Even here, though, the hypnotic sample-based "Recycletwo" revealed a willingness to experiment that marked Jones out as more than just a pop craftsman in the vein of Crowded House or Aztec Camera.

What had started essentially as a recording project had become a five-piece live band by the time the follow-up, Candids, was released in 1998. Loaded with nagging guitar hooks and dynamic vocal interplay, it included one particularly affecting piece, "Small Ad," which featured just one line of lyric, the heart-rending couplet, "Baby’s shoes, never used." With those four words, Jones conjured up a yawning abyss of grief that other writers might struggle to evoke in an entire album.

Jones quickly realised that live performance was not his forte and retired to the womb of the studio for 1999’s third album, Slow Fade, which also saw the birth of the partnership that would lift Miracle Mile higher still above the norm. Marcus Cliffe, in demand as a player for Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, Daniel Lanois, Mark Knopfler and others, was drafted in on upright bass.
Immediately the music took a more intimate turn, with Jones exploring the little things that illuminate the big things. Almost every song offers up at least one unforgettable line, like "I'd rather be ashes than dust" in "Everybody Loved You," or the concept of filling the void left by his loss of faith "with despair and metalware" in "Starwatching."
Slow Fade was further enhanced by the delicately filigreed swirls and swoops of England’s finest steel guitar maestro, B.J. Cole, whose style sat so well with Jones and Cliffe that he has become virtually a full-time member of the band.

And then, out of nowhere, catastrophe struck. Trevor Jones’ beloved sister died in tragic circumstances. It’s typical of the man that, rather than wallowing in his grief as he had every right to do, he dealt with his loss in the quiet, honest dignity of "Sister Song," the achingly lovely tribute that concludes the fourth album, Alaska. It can’t have been coincidence that the album, despite its meltingly beautiful musical landscape, was named for one of the coldest places on earth.

By the time of Stories We Could Tell in 2004, Miracle Mile were drawing critical plaudits in every significant British magazine and newspaper, along with comparisons to such pop pluperfectionists as Prefab Sprout and the Blue Nile. Critics were noting that Miracle Mile was fast becoming a repository of timelessly romantic music fueled by the same shamelessly emotional human concerns that inspired the great standards. More than this, it was being noticed that while most bands go into decline after two or three albums, Miracle Mile were getting better, perhaps because they’d avoided the trap of trying to be contemporary, and had no need to be more outrageous than the competition, largely because they didn’t see music as a competitor sport.

The sixth album, Glow, showed up in 2005 and found Jones and Cliffe further expanding their musical palette mixing Celtic folksiness with slow, semi-industrial percussion on the inspirational "An Average Sadness," blending Badalamenti guitars with Bacharach horns on "What Kate Did Next," and opening "Strange Sympathy" with a beautifully synthesised string orchestration before letting the song melt seamlessly into a laid-back country-rock rumination on the gap between aspiration and acquisition. Glow was also their most lavishly packaged disc, gorgeously presented at no small cost to themselves.

Album No. 7, Limbo, offered fifteen songs overflowing with sensitively wrought melodies and heart-fluttering lyricism. If it’s not a contradiction in terms, Limbo was even more quietly passionate than usual, deliciously understated and, at times, devastatingly tear-jerking.

‘Cassidy’s Care’ followed in 2012 and received similar critical acclaim.
Miracle Mile may just be too concerned with timeless quality for their own short-term commercial good. They’ll never sink a fang into the jugular when they can plant a whisper of a kiss on that sensitive spot at the nape of the neck and set off a tiny ripple that will, in the fullness of time, explode in the heart. I, for one, wouldn’t want it any other way.
Johnny Black

“Trevor Jones finds the poetry in real life; Marcus Cliffe anchors it in the sweetest pop. Gorgeous as ever. You may cry.”
Sunday Times

"Gentle enchantment. The loveliest melodies you've ever heard."
UNCUT

“Gorgeous melodies, hooks galore, intelligent lyrics that demand and repay careful listening, beautifully produced instrumentation, and an overall effect that combines poignancy and joy in equal measure. Music and words come together in a state as close to perfection as makes no difference, and leaves you with a delicious ache that makes you hug yourself with the sheer overwhelming joy of hearing such wonderful music. The beauty on offer here is enough to make you weep. It did me."
Americana UK

“A little oasis illuminated by musical creativity, glimpsed like a lovely mirage. Intelligent tunefulness that doesn’t kowtow to passing trends has always been as rare as fish fingernails, but it’s here.” Mojo

“Classic pop songwriting, gorgeously realised” The Times

“Moves you to tears and refreshes the soul. Scintillating.”
Maverick

“A tender sadness. Songs that have universal resonance.”
Netrhythms

"Trevor Jones has produced a gorgeous pop album that few will hear — unless there’s justice in the world.’ The Wall Street Journal

“Jones has compiled possibly the finest catalogue of adult pop. Gently beautiful and genuinely moving”
The Sunday Times