Yesterday, my granddaughter and I watched Yo Gabba GabbaLand!'s NPR Tiny Desk Concert, which features Thundercat. It reminded me to sit down and give this a rare spin.
Now, I love Thundercat's music. His playing is simply beautiful, and who doesn't love a falsetto vocal?
This box set of four 45 RPM 10" singles on red vinyl, each in its own double-envelope cardboard sleeve, is a thing of beauty. Unfortunately, it's such a ballache to play that I never touch it. A format only good if you want to get your steps up.
A.L. Lloyd – Leviathan! Ballads & Songs Of The Whaling Trade
Back in the naughties, I set sail on a sea shanty tip. It was part of a more general English folk tip, but sea shanties really did it for me.
The moans, groans, hopes, dreams, fears, desires and celebrations of working class young men dragged off to sea to battle the French, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, freebooters, privateers, the geography, the weather, illness, malnutrition, the Captain, the sea, or – as in this collection – whales.
We live quite near what was once a prime whaling region, and I always find it deeply moving to go down south and look at how many shipwrecks there were along that section of coast. Poor bastards from London, Bristol Liverpool or wherever, sailing in from a spell around freezing Antarctica, finally sailing towards beautiful and sunny Victor Harbor, then striking a rock and drowning.
A.L. Loyd has one of those instantly recognisable imperfect-perfect voices. On this album he’s joined by some real folk heavyweights (including Dave Swarb
... Show more...
A.L. Lloyd – Leviathan! Ballads & Songs Of The Whaling Trade
Back in the naughties, I set sail on a sea shanty tip. It was part of a more general English folk tip, but sea shanties really did it for me.
The moans, groans, hopes, dreams, fears, desires and celebrations of working class young men dragged off to sea to battle the French, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, freebooters, privateers, the geography, the weather, illness, malnutrition, the Captain, the sea, or – as in this collection – whales.
We live quite near what was once a prime whaling region, and I always find it deeply moving to go down south and look at how many shipwrecks there were along that section of coast. Poor bastards from London, Bristol Liverpool or wherever, sailing in from a spell around freezing Antarctica, finally sailing towards beautiful and sunny Victor Harbor, then striking a rock and drowning.
A.L. Loyd has one of those instantly recognisable imperfect-perfect voices. On this album he’s joined by some real folk heavyweights (including Dave Swarbrick and Martin Carthy). He should really be better known in Australia, considering his links to the place.
This album comes with a leaflet of lyrics and descriptions of different types of whales, which is bound to come in handy one day.
I borrowed this album from the library when I was about 13 and really enjoyed it. It was the first jazz album I had really listened to and I remember reading the sleeve notes, learning about contrapuntal arrangements and being blown away. I was a bit of an odd teenager, at times.
Got myself a mint 1961 mono copy a few years ago off discogs and promptly (literally) dropped the needle onto Prayer for Passive Resistance, making a big old skip in the middle of Eric Dolphy's amazing alto sax squawking. Oh well.
This album is a stone cold 10 and I'm playing it twice.
tomgrzybow
in reply to John Spithead • •John Spithead likes this.