Apparently, I buy too many records

My wife Helen, like every other woman i've ever lived with, believes that I buy too many records.

Which, as every record-buying man knows, is a ridiculous belief.

I will concede, however, that I do indeed buy a lot of records and that I don't afford them the same amount of listens and attention that I did 20 or 30 years ago.

To this end, I have decided to blog about the records that I buy, in order to help my appreciation of them - and perhaps to show Helen that I don't buy that many records after all.

Because i'm crap with deadlines the blog posts will be sporadic and probably be about a month or 2 behind but that's just the way i am! The posts will not necessarily be actual reviews (most likely comments, at best) and will generally be pretty damn short due to the reasons outlined above. As a writer in a previous existence i have decided not to worry about writing as art in the pieces but, instead, to attempt to convey feeling over semantic (and often grammatic) perfection.

And 'OCRB'? It stands for 'Obsessive Compulsive Record Buying' - a little known mental health affliction that is potentially damaging to the bank account but ultimately life-affirming. It is sad.......but a nice form of sad.

Friday 13 May 2011

Nils Frahm & Anne Muller: 7fingers (Hush)

This one took a while to get to me. I've had it for a few months and, though normally a big fan of Mr Frahm's, found this one more of an irritation than a celebration. On paper it looks brilliant - Nils on piano/electronics and Anne on Cello - so how could this possibly fail? Well, initially i was put off by the fact that the electronics are much more frequent than the piano - he has smothered glitchy noises over everything, which just seemed out of place the first half dozen listens and, frankly, really got on my nerves. In fact, it is not until the beginning of side 2 that the piano makes a proper entrance and then it just reminded me what i had been missing all along. And i despaired of the whole bloody thing.

Then, after numerous plays, (and because i knew that there MUST be something that i was missing) it happened - the album made sense to me. I heard the dichotomy between the glitchiness and the cello and realised that Nils had not been fucking around at all - he had been accentuating the differences and this only made the whole thing much stronger. And i finally got it - which is testament to the whole point of this blog, it has made me listen to it numerous times so that i could make a comment. I've given the record the time it deserved and now i can place it on the shelf, like the coveted item it has become.

I'm not going to mention Nils' singing though. Just let's say that it shouldn't be on there and leave it at that.
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