rhythmdevils music blog

Harp - Albion



This album holds a special place for me (I'm trying hard not to say "in my heart"). It's a beautiful album with a tragic but ultimately sort of victorious backstory.

The Music-
Tidal's summary did a prettty good job actually, describing it as having a timeless quality while using some modern instruments even synths throughout the album creating atmospherics. It's beautiful folk music with gorgeous vocals and songwriting. And a totally unique sound that took Tim Smith, the musician behind this album about a decade to find - or find again.

Acoustic guitar dominates. The songs have an old english feel to them. But the sound is modern. Beautifully recorded. You will be rewarded playing this on a good system. Lots of subtlety to the sound. Lots of layers.

Backstory-
Tim Smith was the lead musician in the band Midlake, who's album "The Trials of Van Occupanther" is one of my favorite albums of all time. Midlake was an incredible band not only for their music, but because every album sounded completeliy different. They didn't just find a sound that people liked and keep making records like that. They would study certain genres and times of music and then make a record with all those soiunds and harmonies and structures in their heads that had that sound to it. Van Occupanther was influenced by sort of 70's soft rock like Fleetwood Mac but then they added their own style and sound to it of course. Their follow up, "The Courage of Others" was influced by the British 60's psychadelic folk music scene, and i'm not just talking Sandy Denny, they dug deep. And it's a gorgeous album.

They were working on their next album that was going to be called something like "1000 Suns" and I was sooo excited about it. i believe it was going to be influencd by 70's psychadelic rock. But Tim Smith could'nt get the studio recordings to sound the way he wanted, and he kept pushing the band to re record and re record until it broke them all. And Tim Smith woiund up leaving the band basicalliy due to out of control perfectionism. Or brilliance that he could not achieve, depends on your persepective. He said at the time that Midlake would probabliy be more commercially successful without him.

But what tragicalliy wound up happening is the rest of the members of Midlake qucikly recorded an album, probabliy just dying to put songs to tape that was likeliy infuenced by the souind Tim Smith was aiming for. That album is called "Antiiphon" and it's ok, but you can tell they just shoved the record out, it doesn't go very deep, but it has a great sound to it (I'm guessing Tim Smitth's leftover influence on them). Then the rest of the members didn’t' record another album for 10 years until they released an album just this year that is kind of boring to me.

Meanwhile, Tim Smith set out to make solo music, and he pretty right away put up a website calling his solo project "Harp". And he posted a statement that he was working on songs, playing most of the insturments himself and tha it was a slow proceess. Years went by. And more years.

Apparently he had a kind of mental health crisis or breakdown. He was living with his parents, and was creatively stifled. And coudlnt make the music he wanted to make

So what was once one of my favorit bands was now a bunch of creativvely crippled musicians not making music. It made me so sad.

But Tim Smith met a woman and fell in love and she helped him find the sound he was looking for and they made this album - Albion - together. And it's gorgeous and brilliant and deep.

I honestliy think that all the albums Midlake could have made as a band together would have still been better, but you can't force these things I guess. There are still a few songs recorded for the "1000 Suns" album that are somewhere and that Tim Smith said in an interview were the best Midlake had ever made. But they are hidden away somewhere, out of pride i fear.

So this is a wonderul album, not what I think could have been if Midlake could have continued making music together, but still a brilliant piece of magic from a genius musical mind. Victorious but also tragic thinking of all the beauty we will never hear.

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I haven't listened to Albion yet – I'm waiting to see if I can score a CD copy from somewhere – but I did buy The Trials of Van Occupanther. This was great. In addition to the 70s soft rock sound you mentioned, I was hearing a lot of early Radiohead influence here, The Bends particularly, in the dense layering and warmth of the guitars, percussion, bass, piano. Smith's vocals also have a Thom Yorke-ish quality that I really loved. Thanks for recommending it.

 

Awesome. Yeah those Radiohead influences makes sense to me too. Good read. Let us know how you iike Harp when you get a CD!

 

Amplifier - s/t



I love this debut album from this hard rock/metal band. I'm hesitant to call it straight up metal, it has a different vibe than any other metal I've heard. But it's in the vein of Black Sabbath - song based with singing not screaming. If you love the sound of distorting electric guitar, you should give this a listen the band name is a fitting one.

I partlly just love the sound, it's got this clean super electric sound to the album. And the way the vocalist sings and times his lyrics over the tearing riffs. He's almost talking, but not quite, he's just subtle about his harmonies.

My favorite song is "Neon" which is going on my metal playlist. Which I'll share at some point when it's 6 hours long.

I've tried some of their later albums but i so far don’t like the songwriting as much, or maybe i just need more time with them. They've got like 5 more albums after this.

Sound quality is so clean and so good.

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Hayden Padigo - Letting Go



Soothing, calm acoustic guitar that is recorded absolutely gorgeously. If you play this album on a rig with good resolution and 3D layering you can hear the dimensions inside the guitar reverbarating. Yuu can hear each string moving, you can hear his fingers on the strings. I'm not one to care about "hearing the farts" as I call it, but when it comes to a musical instrument coming alive, this is one of the best examples.

it's calm and soothing, but it's not too uplifting to be cheery nonsense. As you can see from the cover, there is still a grounding element of human sadneess. In the harmonies and also there are suble background noises that add texture and depth that make it all the more interesting.

I just love listening to this album - when i have a headache or first thing in the morning or just when i don’t want something loud.

Absoluteliy beautiul. And so are his other albums.

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Pekka Laine & The Enchanted in Slumberland



Blissfully happy psychadelic rock music influenced by what i hear as Surf rock and African Highlife. Some of the happiest music I actually like. I thought it would be good for Easter. Really beautiful and great songs to just dance and be merry to with family or kids or loved ones.

Basicalliy the name of the album says it all I don't know what else to add.

sound quality is excellent.

Listen, Buy, Stream

 

Svaneborg Kardyb - Superkilen



This is sort of ambient-hip hop-jazz fusion or something. Just 2 musicians AFAIK. Keyboardist and drummer.

The Keyboardist is mainly playing sort of chill rhodes sounding jazz inspired melodies with some ambient and other influcences. The drummer is playing laid back hip hop influenced jazz beats that are slow enough to keep the album mellow but with enough kick to keep it moving as well.

And the keyboardist adds atmospheric flourishes as well.

It's a realy bare, beautiful album. Mellow but engaging and a very unique sound that isnt jazz or hip hop or really even fusion, but somethingi of their own.

Listen, Stream, Buy

 

So this blog is obviously leaning way more towards guitar than brass. I do listen to a lot of jazz, but I just feel a bit out of my element to be recommending jazz. I don't know what is well known and I feel it is a waste of time to post albums everyone already knows about. But i'm going to post some jazz albums i like and see what you think.

i mostly listen to either slow jazz for mornings or sick days or headache days or free jazz on other days. One extreme or the other!

 

Andy Sheppard - Surrounded by Sea



Beutiful melodies, just Saxophone, drums and bass. I guess with some mild electric guitar atmospherics but no distinguished guitar lines that stick out like solos or anything (I'm not into jazz guitar for the most part). Really soothing and mellow without being dumbed down. I love this music. Sometimes it's all i can listen to for days.

i actually have Qobuz just for music like this, so on sick/headache days I just browse my Qobuz library.

Beautiful delicate slow jazz recorded beautifully as well

Listen, Stream, Buy

 

Old dudes are on a roll lately!

The stereotype of musicians not able to keep making creative works into older age, someteimes even 40, which is something i've thought about a lot because it seems to be a real trend (trend, not rule), is head over heels right now!

A lot of my favorite new music right now is being made by people who you would conventionallliy think would be making cliché bland or just boring music, or no music at all.

I have always wondered why this trend happens with musicians because other artists - photographers, painters, writers, etc often keep making great works of art into old age. I've speculated it's because of performing and the pressure that puts on artists, or the unique kind of ludiicrous fanboy fame where they're put in positions that just kill their creativiity (at least for music) whereas artists in other mediums don’t' get crowds screaming at them or that public image of them as idols of "perfection". And at the same time, some actors have huge problems with this, but many do not and continue to give incredible performances in films and other mediums into old age despite similar fame. Anyhow...

Here's some old dudes making awesomeme music right now and i jokingly say "old dudes" because my list is all men, but there are plenty of older women making great music too of course. The music here that has really struck me lately just happens to be being made by men over 40. And i generally don't do research when i post music, it's based on what I'm listening to or have discovered. So it's just coincidence.

Firt there was David Gilmour's new album, "Luck and Strange", which is just as good in my opinion a a Pink Floyd album made in the 70's and probably better than some of their later albums. It's so good. And also much better, IMO than Gilmour's earlier solo work post Pink Floyd.

Then there's Thom York, who is nearly 60 years old and let's not forget Radiohead have continued to make incredible music for maybe longer than any other rock band, and then simply refused to put out albums when they don't feel like they can make something they are proud of, which so unique and something I have so much respect for. But Thom Yorke still has a lot of creative anergy in him, the last 3 albums by The Smile, his collaboration with Jonny Greenwood (fellow Radiohead band member) , the most recent 2 albums of which both came out in 2024 but close to 2025 and seem like were probably really just one session split into 2 albums. But all 3 albums are so good and also seem just as experimental as Radiohead (if not a bit less if you consider the music and the times) but they also sound very different from Radiohead. And then there is Thom Yorke's latest new collaboration whith Mark Pritchard, a member of The Smile, called "Tall Tales" which is again totally new and different sounding and again, so far for me, really good. Taking his musical vision in a new directions and totalliy crushing it at his age is very cool.

But there's more.

The Cure, of all bands, just released an amazing new album "Songs of a Lost World". i think it's the best album they've ever made. I think their ablum "Disintegration" is a masteripiee, ut I'm not as bit a fan of the rest of their early work, I think some select songs that would appear on a "best of" from the 80's are catchier than any song on this new album, but as an album this is their best IMO and the songs seem to me like they're coming from a deeper place than their early work. I feel like maybe these songs have been building in them for years. The lyrics are also really interesting. Take the lyrics from the last song on the album - "Endsong"

"And I'm outside in the dark
Staring at the blood red moon
Remembering the hopes and dreams I had
And all I had to do
And wondering what became of that boy
And the world he called his own
I'm outside in the dark
Wondering how I got so old

It's all gone, it's all gone
Nothing left of all I loved
It all feels wrong
It's all gone, it's all gone, it's all gone
No hopes, no dreams, no world
No, I, I don't belong
No, I don't belong here

It's all gone, it's all gone
I will lose myself in time
It won't be long
It's all gone, it's all gone, it's all gone

Left alone with nothing at the end of every song..."

And then there's Phish. These guys have been together since 1983, that's 42 years now. And while their new studio albums. since their hiatus in 2000 are just terrible and baffle me as to what they think they're doing trying to write singer songwriter pop songs, it's as if they don't understand what they are fundamentally as a band (of course that's ludicrous though, they are the band and make the music, i just don't get what they are doing) and I really wish they would take chances with their new studio albums and get experimental and make crazy new interesting albums like an instrumental funk ablum with the sound they found in 1997, a metal influenced album, a groove album with that sound of "First Tube", etc from Trey's solo band, i don't know, just play. But their live performances right now are at times the best they have ever been. i think they're improvising more and often doing more interesting things live than they've ever done. Here's a 1 hour long version of a 3 minute studio song called "Tweezer" played live in 2023 that just blows my mind. A lot of it is just experimental noise, but still so musical. I've always been a fan of Phish, espeically their live performances and how they listen to each other and play together as they call it a "4 headed beast". It's really beautiful especially when, like in this song, they are playing as a group and not sort of following Trey jam endlessly like he often did in the 90's when he was on drugs (he's sober now). Trey plays with the band a lot more these days and it allows them to all go to much more interesting places together. But then ther's the boring new studio songs that don't really move me even live.

This live performance might not be the place to start if you're not into Phish, but it also might be the perfect place. Hint for newcomers to Phish: listen to the drummer and the bassist. I think they are both some of the best in rcck history.

And there's more. The National have continued, without break, to put out nothing but some of the best albums of the year anytime they release an album. Sometimes the best. For 20 years now. Their latest I feel might be their last, but you never know. "First Two Pages of Frankenstein" is a beautiful album of rock ballads. Best listened to on speakers for some reason for me. I've been a fan of The National since the album "Alligator" when they were playing small venues and it's crazy to me how popular they are now (Grammy for best album of the year, Taylor Swift's favorite band, huge venues, etc) but I'm not the type to stop liking a band just because they're not starving artists anymore.

Links to albums mentioned here:

David Gilmour - Luck and Strange
https://album.link/2skfnj8xr7gwv

The Smile:

A Light For Attracting Attention
https://album.link/qdh0g4jf2gzbt

Wall of Eyes:
https://album.link/tbb74tvztkvgd

Cutouts:
https://album.link/chjqvxnhdxx9m

Mark Pritchard and Thom York - Tall Tales
https://album.link/7m6hcwtxgcncf​

The Cure - Songs of a Lost World
https://album.link/wdbh35wqnj8c2

The National - First Two Pages of Frankenstein
https://album.link/dvzcfz4h4b9dg

Phish - Tweezer (live) (live 4/17/2023 from the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, CA - an hour from me damnit!)

 

Amazing post! I couldn't agree more! All of the above have been on heavy rotation for me, except for the Gilmour album, which I haven't heard. Looks like I will have to fix that today!

The National have been my overall favorite current band for a while. Do check out Matt Berninger's new solo album that was just released last week. Bonnet of Pins wouldn't be out of place if it were on Alligator. So good!

 

I forgot to post the link to

Mark Pritchard and Thom York - Tall Tales
https://album.link/7m6hcwtxgcncf

I've just listened to it a bit and like it! Though I feel like Matt Berringer's solo songs sometimes feel a bit sappy or poppy or something and I always feel sad hearing him sing without Bryan Devendorf on drums, who i think is one of the best rock drummers of all time, with cadence or rhythmic phrasing that reminds me of John Bonham - not the same rhythms, just the same brilliant sensibility. I think Matt's songwriting is really enhanced by the Dressner's subtle compositions (making Matt''s songwriting more interesting and less direct) and Bryan's drumming and probably what makes the magic of The National. I think "Walking on a String" is my favorite Matt solo song. Makes that more pop rock sound work better for me somehow.

But yeah, its' still realy good I'm just talking

edit: how unfair is it to say that you're dissappointed when a singer doesn't make music with the same drummer for the rest of their lives? Really not fair to Matt, who understandably wants to explore new sounds and play with other musicians. And even if you just want more The National, letting Matt play different music is the most probably way to get more creative spark flowing into The National. Also i haven't even listen to the whole album "Get Sunk" yet so I'm partly talking out of my ass.

 

Endless Field - Alive in the Wilderness



Gorgeous mellow acoustic jazz fusion with beautiful, naked bass lines, acoustic guitar rhythms, violin, sparse and interesting drumming, and lots of atmospheric sounds and instrumentation (but no cheezy rain/nature sound shit). Really beautiful and creative and unique.

Listen, Stream, Buy

 

Dead and Company w/Dave Mathews -
All Along The Watchtower



For a long time I listened to this/watched this every time I felt down and needed a boost or a sense of perspective.

This is a band called "Dead and Company" playing a Bob Dylan song."All Along the Watchtower" with Dave Mathews singing. That's actually a lot to unpack. And a lot of fun details about a a hundred different things coming together on one night for one song to make something magical happen.

Here are some of those details…

After Jerry Garcia died, for a while there was just no grateful dead, but soon the members formed different bands over the years to keep playing those amazing songs and keep the spirit and community alive. There's been a lot of different incarnations of different sort of "re-groups" of the Grateful Dead. But I think what makes it kind of a mess is Phil Lesh (the bassist) and Bob Weir (the rhythm guitarist) not getting along anymore. I don't know the details about that, but there are all these re-groupings of the Grateful dead where either Bob Weir is not a part of it, or Phil Lesh is not a part of it. "The Other Ones" was one group with all the remaining members except for Phil Lesh. And they had different lead guitarists trying to fill in for Jerry Garcia over the years.

And "Phil Lesh and Friends" is another one that has been going since mid 2000, and Phil just keeps changing up the members of the band and going on tour with different musicians. It's really cool, I saw them live once and it was spectacular and I'm so sad I cant' see them play anymore due to health limitations.

At some point Phil Lesh and Bob Weir will both get too old to tour and I don't know what will happen to the music.

So, "The Dead and Company" is one of those bands, this one is Bob Weir without Phil Lesh. And I think they have made amends by now, but Phil Lesh just didn't join Dead and Company because he has Phil Lesh and friends and simply has a different vision for how to play those songs now, or maybe he was just busy with his own projects or commitments.

Phil Lesh is arguably the best rock bassist of all time, he plays the bass like a guitar. A lot of people talk about listening to the Grateful Dead being about listening to Jerry and Phil play together. So it’s a significant thing to form a band playing Dead music without Phil.

Interesting anecdote: Phil Lesh studied to be a classical musician, or classical composer. Not a bassist. Jerry Garcia met him at a restaurant here in Palo Alto (where I grew up and live now), and even though Phil did not play the bass at the time somehow cosmically saw a great bassist in him and told him to join him in a band and learn the bass. And he did, and wound up being one of the great bassists in history. Which just blows my mind.

Also, it's crazy that the Grateful Dead formed here in Palo Alto. They were originally called The Warlocks, and there's this concert poster of them playing at my high school.

And in Phil Lesh's autobiography, he talks about Jerry Garcia walking around the Stanford Shopping Center playing his guitar. Which is just unimaginable now, the place now is just Yuppie heaven. No one would be caught dead playing a guitar there. Palo Alto must have been so different in the 60’s.

Ok like I said, lots to unpack

For a lot of these re-groups of the Grateful Dead, the obvious huge problem is filling the void left by Jerry. He's not just one of the greatest guitarists in history, he has a style like no one else, a lot of people would call it “soul”. But he also had an incredibly rich understanding of musical history especially American music that gave him this deep tapestry of musical styles and ways of playing to draw from when he played. Most people these days just don't know nearly as much about music to be able to play with such depth.

So a lot of these bands really suffered from the lead guitarist just not having the "soul" that Jerry had, even if they could move their fingers really fast and play a lot of notes. And the end result of the band’s music was to me, lacking “soul”.

But something kind of magical has happened just recently

John Mayer used to be this kind of pop blues musician, and really nothing that interesting or special (in my opinion and according to a lot of people talking about this subject). But somehow Bob Weir saw something in him the way Jerry saw something in Phil Lesh, and he started training to play Grateful Dead songs with Bob Weir. and John Mayer had some kind of spiritual awakening in learning these songs because his guitar playing suddenly became incredible. And he's now by far the best "replacement" for Jerry there has ever been. I mean I honestly love hearing him play these songs, and don't just want to put on an actual Grateful Dead recording like I used to. He's somehow really good. And no one really knows how that happened. It’s like an incident of meeting the devil at the crossroads.

But there's a kind of magic in this music, and these songs, and the whole scene around the Grateful Dead, the fans are so so into it, like nothing else. And John Mayer has not only embraced the scene, but fallen in love with it and supposedly really loves playing these songs and loves the fans and the music and all of it. It's just a really cool thing that has happened.

In this live song, with The Dead and Company, it's John Mayer on lead guitar filling in for Jerry. And on this night, Bill Krutzman, the original drummer I think was just busy, so there's this young kid playing drums next to Mickey Hart (the Grateful Dead had 2 drummers after the early 70's... I'm not sure what motivated them to do that, or why they felt the need, but it does lead to nice complex rhythms).

So then another part of what's coming together for this live performance, which has only happened this way once, is on the side of Dave Mathews

He came up with a really great rendition of "All Along The Watchtower" by Bob Dylan. And in this live performance, the Dead and Company play the song the way Dave Mathews came up with it.

It's kind of crazy to come up with a really unique and good new rendition of this song because not only is the original by Dylan really good, but Jimi Hendrix already totally transformed the song into something entirely his own to the extent that Dylan has said many times that it is now Jimi's song. So it has so much history of being played in new interesting ways by brilliant musicians.

Coming up with a cover that is unique to any original song is rare, but doing it with this song is kind of miraculous.

So this performance is the Dead and Company as i've described them, with Dave Mathews on acoustic guitar and singing, playing Dave Mathew's version of Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower".

And then the bassist filling in for Phil Lesh is obviously not as good as Phil, but he's a pretty bad ass looking guy, you'll see in the video, he obviously loves the music and he’s got a great sense of groove and rhythm (not to mention stage presence!)

So there's just a lot coming together here all at once.

I've listened to Dave Mathew's Band play his version of this song with his band, and it's not nearly as good as this. In fact I would say that it is a bit boring.

I could say a lot more about the Grateful Dead in general, but that's enough to give you an idea of all the magic that's happening here at once.

 

Unguarded 1 - Piercing Touch - (Compilation)



This is a really interesting compilation. I don’t usualliy listen to compliations, I'm a nutty purist about the album format and almost never put on single songs and never listen to best of's. Even the playlists i make of single songs are for other people, i almost never listen to them.

But this compilation is really interesting. And I have tried listening to music by the artists on the compilation and the rest of their music doesn't sound the same as the song they contributed to this compilation. Petra Hermanova for example has an amazing album out, but it's organ based, and the song on this comp uses some kind of reallly cool stringed instrument that just souinds amazimg.

All the songs on this album are full of such interesting textures. It's such a beautiful listen with a good sound system. I couldn’t' even try to pin it to a genre, there's a bit of folk, some electronic, but every song has vocals.

Texture is realliy the only word I can use to describe the songs on this comp. So interesting and beautiful.

LISTEN, STREAM, BUY

And I just discovered there are 2 more editions of this series which I haven't listened to yet, but am excited about. Links to Bandcamp below:

Unguarded 2 - Entangled
https://unguarded.bandcamp.com/album/unguarded-2-entangled

Unguarded 3 - Enkindle
https://unguarded.bandcamp.com/album/unguarded-3-enkindle