Great new music

Got my copy of The Wedding Present's new album today, Take Fountain. It's pretty fabulous. I recommend anything that David Gedge has released, though I would start with Saturnalia or Cinerama's second album, Disco Volante, if you haven't heard his stuff yet.

I've also been listening to the new Crooked Fingers disc, Dignity and Shame, which is sorta like hearing a friend who you've known for years suddenly pass from anger and depression into happiness overnight. It's truly bizarre to hear Eric sounding so energetic and positive. And backed by a Tejano band no less.

Some of the vocals literally had me laughing at first, not in a bad way, but purely for the sheer fun of some of the absurdly (but amazingly) wide-ranging melody lines. This one feels like the biggest change of direction since the first CF disc, which was four albums ago, though there are shadows of the Archers peppered throughout the album, mostly in the guitar lines, picked electric bass and the tone of one of the later piano tracks, which reminds me intensely of "Chumming the Ocean."

I'm really happy to have been a fan of Eric since the Archer's Vee Vee, through Barry Black and now on to Crooked Fingers, because it's been very interesting to watch the music evolve with each new album. It's encouraging to me as a musician, because Eric is just writing cooler, better stuff now than ever, and if he can progress so far over the years, maybe I can do the same proportionally with my own work.