Today’s head music: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – ‘Nobody’s Baby Now’ because my friend Nick told me he’s learning it on the ukelele so he can perform at a wedding, and ‘Private Life’ by Grace Jones because… i’ve no idea.

Another relatively music-free day. After a bike ride this morning I had to run a few errands. Over the last week or so i’ve resumed by CD ripping marathon as my collection makes its way inexorably and simultaneously into the loft and onto a networked hard drive. I’ve been spotting old favourites, forgotten curios and overlooked oddities as i’ve gone and I grabbed some of these on the way out the door.

As I drove I reacquainted myself with Jacob’s Mouse, first with their four track debut ‘No Fish Shop Parking’ and then with the first half of their last record ‘Rubber Ring’. Both bracing and fine. I found myself hearing them in counterpoint to the Field Music album and trying to draw comparisons. I think that those records which have dared to approach the mannered complexity of prog over the last few years have, in part, relied on advances in technology to make their records. To be fair, I know nothing of the way records are made, so perhaps this is balderdash, but they certainly sound more technological in their construction. Jacob’s Mouse, and a host of other bands, were trying to create complex, expressive music in the mid-Nineties, but with more traditional guitars, drums and voice. The results were often shot through with untrammelled creative energy and I think I like that better.

Nothing after that until about 30 minutes ago when I played the first three or four songs from ‘The Marble Downs’ by Trembling Bells & Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy. I like the album more and more. It really ought to be an overwrought mess, but somehow, perhaps because they choose to rock it up as much as they can, it’s undeniable fun.

And that’s it. On the downside, I didn’t listen to much music at all this week. I’ve explained a couple of the reasons for that. In general I think i’m listening to at least as much as this time last year, so perhaps this was just a slow week. On the upside, I never got around to pontificating on Sonos, streaming, ripping and how that’s affected the way I eat music. Think yourselves lucky.

Same time next year?

#musicdiary2012