Joy Division – Closer

This record must have been in my top 10 of Albums I Am Ashamed I Have Never Heard (top 3 being “Pet Sounds”, “Revolver” and “Blonde On Blonde”). Monumental in every sense of the word, it really was Joy Division’s masterpiece (was ever a band less aptly named?). Musically most of it leaves me open-mouthed in admiration –“24 Hours” and “Decades” are, for me, their finest songs, far better than - “Love Will Tear Us Apart”, but emotionally it leaves me strangely cold.

J S Bach – Flute Sonata in E minor, BWV1034

I enjoyed this. I was going to just play it once, but I ended up playing it over and over again. Not as jolly as a lot of flute music tends to be, rather on the solemn and austere side, but none the worse for that.

Ruth Theodore – Worm Food

I wrote a very short but enthusiastic post on this LP (free download on Jamendo) when I first heard it last summer – see http://terrapinlistens2.blogspot.com/2008/09/ruth-theodore-worm-food.html (I think Theodore used to be based in Hampshire but now lives in London). Due to multiple misfortune in the Terrapin household – I won’t go into details – I haven’t had time or opportunity to download anything new, so I listened to this again. I had psyched myself up to be disappointed – some things aren’t as good the second time you listen to them - but I still think it is very, very good. If I described it as English folk (with bluesy influences and the odd burst of jazz) it would be too much like pigeon-holing it, so I won’t. Great songs, with bitter, witty lyrics, great singing, great guitar. The only tracks I don’t get on with are “Overexpanding” (a bit smug, IMHO) and “Home” (maudlin). I was intrigued by the strange, raucous live singalong at the end of “Threat” (seemed to be called “Controlled Demolition”). Best though are the incandescent “Rash”, also “Grounded”, “Murray’s Wives” and “3 Floors”.

Brahms – Piano Quartet in C minor, op 60

The trouble with Brahms or, more accurately, the trouble with me when it comes to Brahms, is that I have never yet been able to listen to him as Brahms, as opposed to as a composer who sounds a bit like Beethoven.

The first time I listened to this, I just wanted to get it over with and listen to something else. I just registered it as an agreeable German Romantic piece, and that was that. But when I got to the final movement I found myself enjoying it more and more, and I had to listen to it again. So I did, and I really liked it. But here’s the thing (as Adrian Monk says). I still don’t think I like it purely as Brahms, I like it because bits of it sound (to me) like Beethoven and Schubert, albeit good Beethoven and Schubert. So I need to make more progress before I really manage to hear Brahms as Brahms.

But perhaps if Brahms really, really wanted to be heard on his own terms he shouldn’t have done things like the (apparently) obvious reference in the final movement to the rhythm in Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.