teabowl

The Beet Organic Café & Market is housed in an old TD Bank building, its entrance behind a still-functional Green Machine ABM terminal. I’m not sure if this is an amazing coincidence or a subtle, “only in the Junction” political statement: on Queen West, the big brands are taking over the mom & pop restaurants and stores. In Toronto’s “up and coming” West End, it’s apparently the other way around.

The Beet is not vegetarian, but very vegetarian and vegan friendly. All of its food is organic and healthily prepared. The fact that it’s co-owned by a certified nutritionist and a homeopathic doctor is evident in everything we tried: the food is tasty, healthy and solid. Unlike the light-and-fluffy salads that pass for vegetarian fare elsewhere, things here are weighty and feel like they’re providing actual nutrition.

It’s all very earnest, but excellent and deserving of a vegan’s/vegetarian’s/locavore’s/eco-aware person’s patronage. The “market” is a thoughtful selection of healthy products, from organic toothpaste to healthy granola bars to tea (the selection could be a little better here, I think…) and coffee. The soundtrack was tasty and chilled roots reggae today, perhaps indicating the preferences of the fabulously friendly blonde dreadlocked server.

We ordered the soup of the day (cream of parsnip with apple), the frittata of the day (kale, broccoli, Emmenthal), a tofu and avocado wrap and a freshly juiced juice. Everything was delicious, the soup a particular standout for me. The sandwich/frittata plates are served with a substantial helping of well-dressed salad (a rare feat, finding a well-dressed salad in any restaurant) and solid multigrain bread with sundried tomato spread.

I ordered jasmine green tea which came in a Bodum coffee plunger - a good idea in principle, but the plunger was a little loose, so I had a few moments of, “Oh boy, I hope it holds up!” :) I did get a free top-up of hot water though (without asking!), which was great.

The bathroom is fabulous (I imagine it used to be the bank manager’s office - worth checking out for its sheer size alone, but also very clean and new, and furnished with non-scented hand soap, which is a rarity again).

Overall, highly recommended. You can tell that intelligent human beings are involved in planning and running this restaurant daily. It felt like a bit of an oasis, and I think I’ll return many times. And I sincerely hope it does well. Toronto needs more restaurants like this.

Closed Mondays, Open Tuesday through Sunday. Hours and location on the website.

It’s odd - sometimes there’s an artist who, despite my best efforts to take an inclusive view, slips through my fingers for years. I may know about them but - for whatever reason - I’ve never really listened to them. Then, something triggers a journey of discovery, and I explore what for me is a hidden gem (that everyone else has known about for years).

The Kinks recently became a case like that. A leisurely, sunny late-morning breakfast in New York’s East Village bore decent food and very pleasurable music. Neither of us knew who it was, but it was so good that we asked. The waiter, an Indian chap, said they were “Kings,” and it took several more songs (and the appearance of ‘L.O.L.A. Lola’) for the coin to finally drop. Oh, the Kinks!

A quick visit to Amazon.com resulted in this:

The Kink Kronikles

The Kinks. Reprise / Wea 1990, Audio CD, $12.38

Fabulous music. At first, second and third listen, what I love most is how English they are. And that they’re perhaps ‘more like the Beatles and less like the Stones’ (whatever that means; I’ve never been a big Stones fan). I like the playfulness of the lyrics, the clean simplicity of the music. Theirs is definitely a catalogue I’d like to explore further.

Other major artists of rock history that are in my blind spot include The Who and The Band. I’ve started to look into The Band more actively lately. Maybe The Who’s next. (Yes, I know that’s an album of theirs. I just haven’t heard it :)

Live

Seeed. Downbeat 2006, Audio CD, $26.13

Reggae from Germany. Why not? Is it surprising that Germans can get their groove on and sound indistinguishable from Jamaicans? Francophone Europe has a long tradition of embracing reggae, particularly reggae from Africa (Alpha Blondy, Lucky Dube, etc.). Germany has, in the last few years, developed its own authentic reggae/dancehall scene with acts like Gentleman, Mono & Nikitaman and Nosliw. But the biggest, most popular reggae outfit from Germany is without a doubt Seeed (yes, three e’s). In the (apparently spectacular) live configuration, there are 11 band members, a whole soccer team’s worth.

So far, they’ve made three studio records (four if you count a somewhat silly ‘compilation’ for the English-speaking market) and the Live record I’m talking about here. The music is a blend of modern roots reggae and dancehall. The lyrics are half in German and half in English (the English is a very authentic-souding Jamacian patois, no less). The fun factor is writ large, and this is immensely entertaining summertime music (as is most reggae… but then I’m a bit of a reggae aficionado). As an English-speaking person, your entertainment and amusement mileage may vary with this. Musically, it’s fantastic - in my opinion more elegant, musically spirited and better arranged and produced than much of commercial new reggae out of Jamaica these days (excepting, maybe, Damian Marley’s recent records, which are lovely).

Seeed often celebrate Berlin, their city, so there’s a lot of ‘local patriotism’ in their lyrics. A lot of ‘Berlin’ boasting to go with the Seeed boasting. Seeed’s message is empowering. Lyric sample (with loose translation):

[Du] befreist alle Tiere aus allen Zoos | Bringst den Frieden direkt nach Nah-Ost | Jeder fragt sich, woher hat der die Power bloss? | Seeed Sound macht kleine Typen gross

You free all the animals from all the zoos | You bring peace to the Middle East | Everybody’s asking, how did he become so powerful? | Seeed’s sound makes little guys huge

Seeed has apparently had some success in Jamaica, with tracks like ‘Waterpumpee’ (Anthony B guests) and ‘Dickes B’ (with Black Kappa). That’s a big stamp of approval for a band from Germany.

This is party music, drive-your-car-with-the-windows-down-and-turn-it-up music. There will be summer wherever you decide to play this. And if you happen to understand German, you’ll laugh a lot. (As I’m writing this I realize that perhaps, this is the ultimate in ‘long tail’ music: there’s me and, like, ten other devoted reggae fans who will fully appreciate this music, bilingually, for the humour in both languages.)

The Visitors

ABBA. Polydor / Umgd 2001, Audio CD, $5.42

I’ve had a 26-year love affair with this album. This was one of the first records I bought with my own money. I was 11 or 12 when it came out. ABBA was accessible, wonderfully well-produced, very very catchy yet musically complex pop. In a way, perhaps the last 2 or 3 ABBA albums are a good example or the ‘autumn years’ of complex pop.

They occupy a point in time before music like this became associated primarily with show tunes, gay people and retro disco parties, but after studio technology was audibly a hurdle to be overcome. Andersson and Ulvaeus were masters of composition, arrangement and studio technology. For me, it’s with ABBA’s work after the mid-1970s (and perhaps Fleetwood Mac’s work from the same era) that the limitations of studio technology become truly inaudible for the first time.

I have marveled at different things related to The Visitors at different times. As a kid, the melodies and harmonies burned themselves into my brain. This is music I’ll never forget, like riding a bike or swimming. Today, I can appreciate the timeless nature of the balanced arrangements and production values, especially since I now understand how much work it must have been - back then - to achieve something that sounds so effortless. I can also appreciate the songcraft better today: Andersson & Ulvaeus, like Lennon/McCartney, wrote great songs even when they were tossing off album filler tracks. And the lyrics! Everything rhymes! This is almost completely unheard of in popular music today, where cadence and rhythmic delivery compensate for a complete absence of rhyme. The rhyming bit is particularly impressive for two Swedish guys.

The women’s voices are also as wondrous today as they were back then. They bring great clarity and simplicity to these songs; nothing is over-sung or over-emoted. It’s just sung, beautifully, in musically dense arrangements, with lots and lots and lots of overdubbed backing vocals. The backing vocals themselves are interesting, because they employ elements more typical to choral singing (canons, etc.). Choruses are often underpinned by backing vocals that use the same lyrics, slightly changed or syncopated; this is something that wasn’t done much after the Beach Boys’ heyday.

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t comment on the musicianship. In a way, it goes without saying that ABBA’s Swedish studio band was an ace team of professionals - ABBA was, after all, the world’s biggest-selling pop band at the time, true superstars deserving of a killer backing band. Yet I still marvel at Ola Brunkert’s and Per Lindvall’s precise, groovy drumming and Rutger Gunnarsson’s rumbling, melodic bass; neither of these have lost any of their original impact in the 26 years since I first heard them.

Most remastered editions of this record contain ‘The day before you came,’ one of three post-The Visitors singles that were ABBA’s final releases. ‘The day before you came’ is possibly one of the most melancholy pop songs ever written. I can see direct lines from it to the Pet Shop Boys’ ’story songs’ on Actually five years later.

The Visitors will always be in my personal Top 10, I think. I don’t care if that’s cool or not… and I’m not saying that to be provocative or retro :)

Reasonable critical review here. Complete misunderstanding and misinterpretation by Rolling Stone here (perhaps an indication that North Americans never completely ‘got’ ABBA? :)

The medieval concept and practice of pilgrimages stretching over months or even years - to Jerusalem, Rome or Santiago de Compostela - sits uneasily with today’s package tours and motorised travel. For the original pilgrims, though the destination (both physical and metaphysical) was important, the journey was the thing, with all its physical hardships, the hazards along the way and the shared experience, occasionally violent but mostly convivial. Today there are less onerous, probably safer and certainly faster ways to visit the magnificent abbeys, priories and cathedrals that criss-cross southern France and punctuate the various routes through northern Spain. Yet something is missed if we are accorded only the briefest of glances before the tour guide summons us on to the next step in the itinerary. Medieval men and women had the time to become absorbed, the capacity to be enraptured. (John Eliot Gardiner, from the sleeve notes to Pilgrimage to Santiago)

There’s been a slew of recordings in the last few years from musicians making the pilgrimage (the ‘Way of St. James‘) to Santiago de Compostela, a city in Spain where the remains of St. James are said to be kept. This medieval pilgrimage of potentially 1,000km or more has been made for more than 1,000 years from various originating points across Europe. Pilgrims typically walk; many cycle and a few ride on animals.

John Eliot Gardiner, renowned British conductor of choral music, and his Monteverdi Choir, undertook to walk the camino and sing in many of the churches and cathedrals along the way. These performances of 12th century choral music were recorded and released as Pilgrimage to Santiago.

Pilgrimage to Santiago

Codex Calixtinus Anonymous (Composer). Soli Deo Gloria 2006, Audio CD, $14.49

In 2004, Canadian violinist/fiddler Oliver Schroer chose to walk 1,000km of the camino through France and Spain with his wife and two friends. He carried his violin in his backpack, wrapped in socks and underwear (as described in the sleeve notes (PDF), which are great). Over the course of two months, Schroer recorded himself playing beautiful improvised music in 25 different churches and cathedrals, using a Sony DAT recorder.

Camino

Oliver Schroer. Big Dog 2006, Audio CD, $16.98

The result is Camino, one of the most intriguing and beautiful records I’ve heard in recent years. For me, the comparisons are the solo violin architecture of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, the improvised classical/jazz fusion of Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble, or even Keith Jarrett’s solo improvisations. The music is of the same ethereal quality. While it seems that Schroer’s more often associated with playing a slightly left-of-centre version of Canadian ‘Celtic’ fiddle music, there are only limited traces of that in this work. His 5-string violin soars and sings, establishes musical structures involving counterpoint and other ‘baroque’ devices, and inhabits a sonic space that can only be described as ‘classical.’ There are pieces, such as ‘The Garden of Birds and Flowers,’ where a Celtic fiddle/bluegrass sensibility comes a little more into the foreground. But it’s always tempered by what I can only call ‘the opposite of Celtic fiddle music’: the naturally beautiful acoustics of the churches put this music firmly in a spiritual light - there’s none of the rhythmic, foot-stomping, dance music intensity (not that there’s anything wrong with that…) of Ontario fiddle music.

And then I stumbled on another kind of tune. What I call the fractal tune. The material that became O2 and Camino. It had a very different quality to it. It was less of an entertainment, and more of a sacrament. This was music that came to me from a different place. Very deep, unexpected, inexplicable and spiritual. Talk of keeping me amused. It had progressed beyond amusement into spiritual practice for me. And getting back to the search for meaning, there was a lot of meaning in this music. It connected with people, it connected with soul, it expressed something profound for myself and apparently for others. It was a mystery, and a beautiful mystery at that. So that, for what it’s worth, is a bit of the story of my musical journey thus far.

Schroer’s camino music is an interesting hands-on illustration of how closely related ‘old’ music and ‘folk’ music really is. Ultimately, the similarity between Bach’s rigorous partitas and Schroer’s spirited improvisations are a matter of what informed them. Both require incredible technique, focus and musical invention. The fact that Schroer’s compositions were not written down (at least I assume they weren’t, even though his liner notes indicate that some pieces are ‘recycled’ from past projects) is actually the least significant point of difference. Going through some samples of Schroer’s earlier recorded work (http://www.oliverschroer.com), it feels as if the cathedral locations and the spiritual focus of walking a thousand kilometers in the footsteps of pilgrims have caused a shift - away from secular solo violin music (much of which already had the same technical elements as Camino) to playing music for the glory of God. (In a fitting parallel, Gardiner’s new independent record label is called Soli Deo Gloria - for God’s glory alone.) Even if Oliver Schroer notes on his website that his dialogue with God has been incomplete at best (not unlike my own, I think):

The meaning I was looking for I didn’t see or find meaning in religion either. Not that I didn’t see other people finding a lot of meaning and solace there. But somehow it was not cut out for me. And that is not to say that I didn’t have an ongoing dialogue with God my whole life long. I used to read the Bible in secret as a teenager. Always 17 verses a day. I ‘m not sure why. So I was not ill disposed toward religion. It’s just that I never found that oomph of certainty that other people seemed to get from it.

Camino is more than a violin solo recording. It’s also a clever audio document of the pilgrimage: every so often, there’s a short ambient track featuring the sounds of the trail. There are church bells, the sound of footsteps on a sandy path, voices of other pilgrims, cathedral doors. I initially thought this would be an unpleasant distraction from the music but I’ve since decided that these brief interludes are sort of like the pickled ginger when you’re eating sushi: they clear your head before the next beautiful morsel of music.

Schroer’s technique never ceases to amaze. I still remember being transfixed, as a child, by my parents’ old Yehudi Menuhin recordings of Bach’s partitas. I remember that I had previously thought of the violin as an instrument that was only capable of activating a single string at a time - I recall thinking that’s why you needed so many of them in an orchestra. Hearing the Bach sonatas and partitas jolted me out of that belief and helped me see the possibilities of coaxing harmonies from violins. Of course, Bach also opened my eyes to many other things. (And I once, during my university days, opened a guitar-player friend’s eyes to “where Deep Purple got all those guitar solos from” by introducing him to Bach’s sonatas and partitas - but that’s another story entirely…).

Oliver Schroer combines elements of classical technique with controlled harmonics (which are only enhanced by the suberb natural reverb of the Spanish cathedral acoustics), subtly ‘Celtic’ harmonies and rhythms, and a meditative, circular way of arranging his melodies - the 8-minute opener, ‘Field of Stars,’ doesn’t seem long at all. If anything, you experience a sudden longing for more once it’s over.

The recording quality also deserves commentary. It’s nothing short of remarkable what can be done with a single Audiotechnica stereo microphone and a Sony DAT recorder. This is the sort of recording that’ll make you want to get out the good headphones, or finally upgrade your stereo. I would say it’s as close to impeccable as recording a solo violin can get in a natural recording space. And it’s especially remarkable that it was made by Oliver himself without any assistance from a professional recording engineer. Even if it didn’t contain some of the most extraordinary improvised music you’ll ever hear, this record would be worth hearing for its acoustics alone.

Oliver Schroer has been diagnosed with leukemia and appears to have spent the last two years in and out of various Toronto hospitals undergoing chemotherapy. His website’s ‘Leukemia‘ section has all the details and his thoughts on this weighty subject. Suffice it to say that I hope his treatments are successful and that we’ll have Oliver Schroer around for many, many more years.

(Camino and Oliver Schroer’s other CDs are available directly from his website. Amazon.com availability seems a bit patchy.)

Eagles

Eagles. Elektra / Wea 2003, Audio CD, $12.90

Mirrors on the ceiling | Pink champagne on ice | And she said, “We are all just prisoners here, of our own device.”

This is a confession of sorts. I really like the Eagles. I know I’m not supposed to. It’s just not cool. Mainstream rock circa 1976 is like mainstream country today. In fact, much new country sounds distinctly rockier than the Eagles. After punk, New Wave, the 80s, the 90s and the 00s, this music just doesn’t have a place anymore. It doesn’t fit. Old people listen to it. The Eagles are still touring, as a very expensive nostalgia act. After disbanding in the early 80s, they made two quite successful ‘comeback’ albums, Hell Freezes Over in 1994, and the Walmart-only Long Road out of Eden in 2007. Both were reasonably well received, but in that slightly shocked, “It’s not quite terrible! It’s not embarrassing!” kind of way that ‘comeback’ albums are often reviewed these days. They’re competent, journeymanlike productions full of the latest studio techniques, made by artists past their prime. 60 is the new 30.

But when the Eagles were in their prime, they were immensely competent songwriters, assured, even exciting performers, and they made great records. I was born in 1970 with no older siblings, so I have no ‘original’ recollection of any of this. I discovered them ‘on my own.’ Well, I think I taped Eagles Live off of my friend Marc’s dad’s record collection. Then, a little later, I bought it on tape. For some reason, that was the one I latched on to. Reviewing the band’s history and discography now, I realize that this first foray was very much at the tail end of their career and I was listening to a band that was already no longer particularly cohesive. Maybe they never were. Too many drugs and other trappings of Southern California rockstardom.

Even though it’s inexcusable for anyone who professes to write about music on the web to admit to liking them, the Eagles were of course deeply influential, and their aesthetic (coupled, maybe, with the Beach Boys and CSN&Y) permeates every aspect of what we call country and ‘country rock’ today. Even still-active bands in related genres that are beyond a shadow of a doubt ‘credible,’ like Blue Rodeo, Wilco or Carl Newman’s New Pornographers, are more than a little indebted to the Eagles’ way of marrying country/folk harmonies to danceable, old-style rock ‘n’ roll. And their classic songs, themselves distilled archetypes built from classic country and continuing a journey begun by Gram Parsons, the Byrds, Creedence Clearwater Revival and others, have become models for much of what followed.

Like mid-70s Fleetwood Mac (another guilty pleasure I proudly admit to and whose defense I’ll write up one of these days), the production values of records like Hotel California are fantastically detailed and flawlessly well thought out. I’m not sure whether I should say they demonstrate studio mastery: they probably do, but given the incredibly long months/years these artists spent in the studio, I have to imagine productivity was quite low. Whether that was because the equipment - though expensive and great - was cumbersome to use, or whether there were other factors (dissent in the ranks, drugs, too much free time) is unclear to me. Either way, the resulting records sound like studio magic. They have an unmatched clarity (well, I think there are some ‘matches,’ like the Mac’s Rumours…), an anologue warmth and a very spacious balance. They also have real drama.

The Very Best of Eagles is a very nice package and, I think, worth getting for even the most unconvinced Indie listener who’d never consider listening to the Eagles. To understand why you’re manning the barricades, it’s often interesting to return to before the revolution and be open to things as they were then. If you like Carl Newman’s full harmonies/wall-of-sound approach, you might wonder where that came from. This is where. The other audience demographic (to use labelspeak) that would probably really enjoy listening to this is the ‘urban country’ crowd in small towns all over North America. The reason the Eagles are on classic rock format radio and country stations rarely play them is related to formulaic corporate programming norms (and taxonomies created by music historians) rather than any base in reality.

There’s a certain 1970s superstar fabulousness to what the Eagles may sing about; an imagined hippie America that was, even then, probably an entirely mythical place.

Take it easy, take it easy | Don’t let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy […]

Or, of course, a little further along in the same number, the always-classic lines:

I’m a standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona | I’m such a fine sight to see | It’s a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford | Slowin’ down to take a look at me | Come on baby, don’t say maybe […]

These situations and sentiments are both completely familiar and completely strange to us now. That’s because the Eagles (and various country/rock predecessors and cohorts) invented them. As a band, they are perhaps the final truly commercial embodiment of this ethic.

After them, popular music changed forever. It fragmented, renewed itself a hundred times; and with each split and rebirth came layers and layers of judgment about what had come before. Now, in 2008, it’s still ‘common knowledge’ that you’re not supposed to think the Eagles are cool. If you’re over 35, you can maybe get away with listening to them and liking them (in your own car, with the windows rolled up… and maybe with the volume lowered a little when you pull up at an intersection just to make sure nobody outside overhears you). But you’re certainly not allowed to think they’re cool. Given the quality of their music, it’s essentially irrelevant whether they were ever cool. Theirs is a great, lasting body of song that should be heard.

Candi Staton

Candi Staton. Emd Int’l 2004, Audio CD, $16.54

Candi Staton is a “southern soul” singer who recorded several albums for Fame Records in famous Muscle Shoals, Alabama (where many others, like Aretha Franklin, recorded with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section). Candi Staton came from a gospel background and only turned herself into a secular singer relatively late in life (in her 30s).

This compilation contains 26 incredible pieces of music that clearly and definitively affirm her (to me, at least) as the equal of Aretha Franklin. Every performance is heartfelt and comes from a place of knowledge: she’s lived the stories in these songs. As a result, she’s not so much ‘interpreting’ them than simply asserting their truth through her performance.

After these 60/70s records, Candi Staton changed record labels (to Warner), turned disco (presumably to stay relevant) and recorded “Young Hearts Run Free,” a sort of perennial retro disco favourite and not at all a good indication of who she is as a singer. In the 80s, it appears that some tough personal relationships (and the resulting alcohol or drug abuse) eventually made her quit secular music and return to gospel. She founded her own ministry, recorded some very successful albums and was nominated for a few Grammys.

His Hands

Candi Staton. Astralwerks 2006, Audio CD, $4.99

In 1996, she returned to secular music with His Hands, a quiet return to southern soul produced by Lambchop’s Mark Nevers. It received mixed, but mostly positive reviews. It’s worth listening to, if only because it’s an interesting example of ‘aging gracefully’ in the music industry, like Loretta Lynn’s co-operation with Jack White, or Dolly Parton’s lovely bluegrass albums of the early 2000s.

Voice

Beverley Knight. EMI Int’l 2006, Audio CD, $6.47

Who I Am

Beverley Knight (Performer). 2002, Audio CD, $10.16

Affirmation

Beverley Knight. EMI Int’l 2006, Audio CD, $13.99

Beverley Knight is an immensely talented R&B singer from the UK who is completely unknown in North America. This is a great shame because she’s incredibly gifted, accomplished and, frankly, as good as or better than Beyoncé and Mary J. Blige. Beverley Knight should be more widely known and definitely belongs in the same class of divas.

Even though you’ll have to buy them as imports if you’re in Canada or the US, there are several Beverley Knight records I’d wholeheartedly recommend. The best starting point is probably Voice: The Best of Beverley Knight. According to Amazon.com, this contains 11 UK top 40 singles, and I don’t doubt that for a minute given the quality of the music on this disc. It’s a must-have career-to-date overview, spanning earlier material that’s heavily R&B/dancefloor oriented and later tunes that are more ‘retro’ in orientation (and remind me a little of golden-age Tina Turner).

Through it all, there’s Beverley’s magnificent voice: her singing is less runs-oriented than other contemporary female singers, and her vocal embellishments are more strongly typed and intelligently targeted at causing specific expressive effects. Speculating for a minute, this could be because Ms. Knight learned to sing in church. Wikipedia says,

Knight was born of Jamaican parents, and she grew up in a strict Pentecostal household where church attendance was commonplace. It is here where she began her singing career: “the first time I heard music would have been in church. My mum was often called upon: ‘Come on sister Dolores. Lead us in song!’ Singing was the most natural thing in the world. I thought, doesn’t everybody’s mum lead the congregation at church in song?” Knight continued singing in her local church throughout her childhood, and her musical education was continued at home where she was often exposed to gospel music.

For those wishing to dive deeper into Beverley Knight’s music, I would recommend Who I Am and Affirmation. Both present a very palatable mix of R&B and chart-oriented pop - so they work for ears looking for big hooks, not just those deeply immersed in the R&B paradigm.

Music City Soul

Beverley Knight. Parlophone Int’l 2007, Audio CD, $8.87

On her latest offering, Music City Soul, Knight ventures even further into classic soul territory. Recorded in Nashville with a band of veteran R&B players, this record sounds more ‘acoustic’ and showcases her gospel voice beautifully. In a BBC interview referenced on Wikipedia, Knight says,

My mother played Sam Cooke and he was the first voice I ever heard on record. His was the first voice that directly had a big impact on me, vocally. He still makes me cry. He’d take the very simple Bible stories that I grew up with and just make them into a two-and-a-half-minute song and yet with an intensity and a passion that the world had never heard before. He really was a major influence on my life.

Beverley Knight’s increasingly classicist R&B is fantastic music that begs to be heard. Too ’straight’ and perhaps a little too old-fashioned to become successful in a North American market where ‘R&B’ is a category that (puzzlingly) also contains the Pussycat Dolls and Nelly Furtado’s terrible Loose, Knight’s records make a strong case for proper singing.

This Gift

Sons & Daughters. Domino 2008, Audio CD, $9.26

So I think this is my first album of the year (not that ‘albums of the year’ mean anything around here). But Sons & Daughters‘ new record, This Gift, really resonates with me - and did so right out of the box. I’ve liked this band right from when I first heard them (I forget how it was that I came across them) and have enjoyed their EP Love The Cup and first full-length, The Repulsion Box, since they’ve been out (2004 and 2005, respectively).

Formed by members of Arab Strap, these four have been described as a “co-ed quartet.” Comprised of two women and two men, they play a hard-driving kind of garage rock with oddball folk, country and 60s girl-group influences - operating somewhere at the nexus of the B52’s, early Supremes (okay, only a little bit), The Go-Go’s and Nick Cave.

I had previously fallen in love with the feisty Scottish country-punk of their earlier offerings, such as ‘Dance me in’ from Repulsion Box. The principle then seemed to be to play a very dancefloor-oriented flavour of indie rock (although PopMatters takes issue with classifying Sons & Daughters as ‘indie’ and they have a bit of a point). The ‘top notes’ of the earlier material were characterized by shared vocals between Adele Bethel (lead singer) and Scott Paterson (guitars, vocals), and a sometimes folky/country-inflected instrumentation and a ‘circle song’ feeling on several numbers (though maybe that was simply because a lot of the material was so two-chord simple as to induce a toe-trapping trance…).

The new disc is both a departure from the original sound and a very focused, smart further development of it. Produced by Bernard Butler (Suede), it’s a rockier, crunchier affair; it has the same sharpness and presence (basically, treble) that the Suede and McAlmont & Butler discs had. It’s also more oriented towards rock and 60s girl groups than previous efforts. And there’s a lot less singing by Scott Paterson. The songs are better developed, too, resulting in a more coherent, poppier, complete album. And all of this is to good effect.

While Pitchfork observes that it’s “perhaps too far in the red too much of the time,” I think that’s its charm. It’s springtime and rock ‘n’ roll is supposed to be louder this time of year. Shake loose the last bits of snow, crank open the windows and drive out the musty smells in your apartment. And turn up Sons & Daughters. You’ll like them.

August and Everything After

Counting Crows. Geffen Records 1993, Audio CD, $5.31

I want to be Bob Dylan | Mr. Jones wishes he was someone just a little more funky | When everybody loves you, son | That’s just about as funky as you can be

Is there anybody who listened to rock music in 1993/94 who doesn’t remember those words?

If there were a top ten records of all time list on Teabowl, Counting Crows’ August and Everything After would probably be on it. (Well, there are so many discs that I would deem worthy of a place that it might get bumped on and off every so often - but this is a CD I’ve played and loved, over and over again. If CDs had grooves to wear out, I’d be on my 5th copy.)

It’s a rare album that achieves so many things, so elegantly, in such a short time: it’s immensely listenable, with big, bright, soaring choruses; at the same time, it’s lyrically very complex and goes to more dark places than any single record really should. It competently channels many influences, from Van Morrison to John Mellencamp to REM, without ever just ‘borrowing’ thoughtlessly or mimicking ineffectively.

One of the secrets of this album is its sequencing - from the chiming opening guitar on “Round Here,” a mid-tempo exposé of small-town reality (or maybe the existence of inmates in a psychiatric hospital; I’m still not completely sure); to “Omaha,” a Celtic/country-inflected masterpiece of obscure but deeply resonant lyrics; to “Mr. Jones,” both a fabulous up-tempo party song and somehow melancholy, searching and deeply desperate at the same time. On to my personal favourite, “Perfect Blue Buildings.” If good poetry keeps you guessing then there’s lots of great poetry here:

Asleep in perfect blue buildings | Beside the green apple sea | Gonna get me a little oblivion | Try to keep myself away from me

Well, maybe that’s about as precise and to the point as lyrics can be - there are dark places everywhere, and most of them are right here in your own head. On to “Anna Begins.” And if I hadn’t already called “Perfect Blue Buildings” my favourite, this would have to be it. A love song about a ‘complicated’ relationship, its lyrics are beautiful in the insights they offer through small changes of perspective as the song rolls on. I love these two verses, musically the same and lyrically a powerful juxtaposition:

This time when kindness falls like rain | It washes her away | And Anna begins to change her mind | “These seconds when I’m shaking leave me shuddering for days,” she says | And I’m not ready for this sort of thing

The time when kindness falls like rain | It washes me away | And Anna begins to change my mind | And every time she sneezes I believe it’s love and | Oh lord, I’m not ready for this sort of thing

Adam Duritz’s songcraft is flawless on much of this album, and near-flawless on the remainder. His lyrics often channel writers like Dylan or Springsteen (Dylan in the precise approximations, Springsteen in the ’story song’ approach). His singing more often than not reminds me of Van Morrison - there’s a ‘white soul’ element here that works beautifully for this material.

The band plays powerful ‘acoustic rock’ (in a way, I’ve always felt this album heralded, or accurately reflected, the “MTV Unplugged” sound that more plugged-in artists would employ at their unplugged concerts). For all its musical drama, the band is also incredibly restrained throughout, tastefully underscoring and foregrounding Adam’s lyrics and vocals. We have to assume that some of this is because of T-Bone Burnett’s masterful production - not only does this record sound lovely, particularly in the 2007 remastered deluxe edition, but the playing is first-rate throughout.

It’s commonly lamented that Counting Crows never scaled the same heights again after this record: their subsequent CDs have been competent but not necessarily outstanding albums. (They’ve just released a new one that I haven’t heard yet - it’s gotten very positive reviews, so I’m cautiously excited about it.)

But, quite frankly, if they had never made another record, August and Everything After would still stand as a towering achievement. It got me through many melancholy and sad days in the 90s. And drab days at the office. And all kinds of other situations. There were times when it didn’t leave my CD player for days.

(There are two thoughtful reviews that I wanted to mention here: The BBC discusses how this album has held up (very well). Uncut shares that opinion and offers some fun quotes from Adam Duritz about recording it. And Adam has an interesting blog here.)