With my tinnitus slowly disappearing (I think?) I’ve really started to appreciate music again.
I was avoiding listening to the new Blonde Redhead album “Penny Sparkle” on the basis that I thought it was the end of them really…
What I mean is while “23” had it’s moments and was a gracious, warm return, the shoegaze guitars seemed to me a bit cordial and the lyrics a little sparse in meaning. Also the title track “23” was so good it nearly eclipsed nearly everything they had done previous to “Fake can be just as good”. Then ultimatly the miming bits when I saw them live in 2008 at Shepards Bush Empire. I had rengegated to them to “kind of fizzled out” but the new bass synth heavy “Penny Sparkle” is kind of wow. It’s pretty much perfect. I’ve been listening to Blonde Redhead for around 8 years now, after luckily finding there music on the now defunct Epitonic and taking a chance at seeing them play “melody of certain damaged lemons” in it’s near entirety at the London Garage with a crowd that seemed to be little more than a handfull of French and Italian backpackers and few other luckly people. I was hooked for lack of better word. I think a lot of the bands I started liking around the time I’ve either gotten bored of, split up or I’m just not feeling the lastest works (See Interpol, Liars, Tv on the Radio) So it’s nice with just about everything else in my life changing since then that Blonde Redhead are still there making the music I love.
As whimsical and tedious it’s something I like to cling to cosidering they have soundtracked so much of my life from first few weeks of my hnc at “Bedford arts college” through Cambridge, Brighton, Marston and to Luton. At this point (for indie points) I should find my photos of them playing the Mean Fiddler in London (it’s now a block of flats) but they are lost somewhere, so I’m posting images found on the amazing last.fm pictures section.
Obligatory Link » Blonde Redhead
