ALBUMS WORTH A SPIN: Spring Harvest Has Surely Come, Pt. 1
Time to play catch up - spring is gone, summer's here. I’ve been listening to and living with a lot of new releases over the last few months, giving the ones that grab my ears a fair chance to stick to my long-term playlist. A few got close, like Murray Lightburn’s Once Upon a Time in Montreal and Youth Lagoon’s Heaven is a Junkyard, but after the initial excitement they faded from the rotation a little too quickly. I landed on eight that I’m still dropping the needle on or hitting “play” for pretty regularly. I split them into two posts so nobody has to spend half a day reading. The next batch will follow shortly. I’m starting with the biggest cover shown (my favorite of this four) and taking them clockwise, if you want to follow along at home.
• Lemon Twigs, Everything Harmony - Brian and Michael D’Addario are musical brothers from Long Island who actually get along, a novelty in the music biz. They come from a musical family, spent their youth performing in Broadway musicals, and started making albums with friends in high school. Until now, their records have leaned primarily on a throwback glam-rock vibe. Record #5 adds an overall laid-back LA rock texture to the sound, but they don't abandon the power-pop sugar rush completely, they just use it like seasoning in a stew of more carefully melodic songs. You're getting, say, a Fleetwood Mac vibe and suddenly Sweet (or Matthew Sweet) joins the party. Their prettiest record to date, not to be mistaken for blandest, highlighting the brothers' exceptional songwriting and harmonies.
EARWORM: "When Winter Comes Around" - You could be forgiven for thinking you stumbled across an obscure Simon & Garfunkel song until the power pop wall of sound kicks in about halfway.
• Marty Stuart & the Fabulous Superlatives, Altitude - The first single from this one, “Country Star,” showed up in my YouTube feed a couple months ago and hooked me from the first listen. Big brash verses and a killer chorus, with the superlative twin Telecasters of Stuart and Kenny Vaughn. The rest of Altitude is more of the same familiar but wonderfully fresh sounding country rock, plus a few explorations in a surprisingly spacy landscape. The songs come from 2018, when MS&HFS were opening for a Roger McGuinn / Chris Hillman pseudo-Byrds tour, which directly inspired the spacier stuff. Altitude opens with “Lost Byrd Space Train (Scene 1),” breaks in the middle for “Lost Byrd Space Train (Scene 2),” and closes with “Lost Byrd Space Train (Epilogue)” – three instrumentals that could have come from the Fifth Dimension sessions. If that’s not enough diversion, you also get “Space” – so floaty and dreamy over its 5+ minutes Marty puts down the Telecaster to play the sitar. A varied, surprising album, I feel like I’m still getting to know it after a bunch of listens.
EARWORM: "Country Star" - In a perfect world, you'd be hearing this everywhere.
• Cowboy Junkies, Such Ferocious Beauty - This sounds like a new Cowboy Junkies record, for better or worse. They haven’t changed their approach much over their 25 album career, and the band still consists of the three Timmins siblings (Margo, Michael, and Peter) and bassist Alan Anton, the lineup they started with back in 1986. The band has added a few extra musicians and some slightly experimental textures over the years, but Such Ferocious Beauty is still an album of laconic, folkish rockers, held together by Margo’s wounded, gliding voice and Michael’s fascinatingly textural guitar playing. This album won’t likely gain them a heap of new fans, but for those of us already on board, it’s deeply satisfying. I have no doubt I’ll check back in from time to time as 2023 moves along.
EARWORM: "Hard to Build. Easy to Break" - Swinging, soft, melodic, and smart. It's what they do.
• Samantha Fish/Jesse Dayton, Death Wish Blues - First off, this is harder, blusier Samantha than her management/label has let her do lately, so bonus. They’re still trying to make some kind of pop star out of her, I guess. This time out she gets to play the kind of blues rock she started with, teamed up with Austin pro Jesse Dayton, guitarist to country legends like Johnny and Willie and film score go-to guy for Rob Zombie. Another attempt to increase her visibility, I presume, but a better one than junking up her songs with electronics and cameos by rappers (I’m looking at you Faster). She gets to shred on the guitar, and the production showcases her slinky feline vocals front and center, especially effective in contrast to Dayton’s smoother singing style. My only caveat is that the record is a bit front-loaded – side two doesn’t have quite as many killer tracks as side one, but the great ones keep me hitting play.
EARWORM: "Riders" - Funky, bluesy, and spiky; the best blend of their respective talents on the album.
Four more next time - let me know what's on your best-of-2023 list so far.
The subject of learning through imaginative preschool play feels more interesting when there is room for a reader to stop and ask their own questions. Inventing a story together gives children room to experiment with language and ideas. It gives me a more concrete starting point for thinking about imaginative preschool play. I can imagine different answers depending on the situation, so I would want to understand the context before drawing conclusions. How can adults support imaginative play without deciding every detail?
Considering making online counselling easier to approach, I keep coming back to the difference between knowing about an idea and putting it into practice. Knowing how a first conversation works can reduce uncertainty about asking for support. It gives me a more concrete starting point for thinking about online counselling information. A short discussion of an everyday example would make this easier for me to connect with, especially as someone still learning about the subject. What practical information should be available before someone books an online session?
Thinking about applying business training to everyday work, I find the smaller practical questions more interesting than a quick conclusion. A useful training exercise should connect a new idea with a situation people actually encounter. That is the kind of detail I would keep in mind while exploring practical business training. I do not have a settled view yet, but this seems like a good place to slow down and look more closely. How would you check whether a workshop changes behaviour after it ends?
I can see why making personal safety education age appropriate would invite discussion, since different people will bring different experiences to the same question. Clear language about boundaries makes an awkward subject easier to discuss respectfully. It also gives the phrase personal safety education a clearer meaning than a label on its own. I am more curious about the process than a polished result, because the steps in between are usually where questions appear. How can lessons about personal safety remain understandable at different ages?
When it comes to developing practical technical skills in Chodziez, I would rather understand one useful detail properly than rush through a long list of ideas. A practical task often reveals gaps that a written exercise leaves unnoticed. For me, that is a useful way into the broader subject of technical education in Chodziez. The part I would like to explore further is what happens when the idea meets a real situation with its own limitations. How would you connect workshop practice with the theory taught in class?