From the Mouths of Innocents

Date
December 13, 2012

Miracler
Paul Rhodes

Location
York, England

Who's up for a mix from another new Miracler?
You are. Know how I know? Because I've already road-tested this doozy, and lemmetellya, it's smooooooth. Or, like my M.A.C. lipstick color name: Smooooove. I don't know a lot about Paul Rhodes, except that he came to us through the Dan Weber door, but by the associative property of Miracle math, that means you are in for a treat. Another way to know: Because I already told you. Enjoy.

Liner Notes by PR
We’ll make no concessions to the season here, but looking forward…

Another Year Again

A little prescient, but no one kicks off albums like this Canuck band. For me they are just a lead singer away from greatness, but their instrumentals are peerless. Perhaps the true heirs to the Band and the Byrds.

Revolution (in the Summer Time)

Scottish Byrds? Sadly this rainy day tune never caught the public’s ear at the turn of the Millennium but is now ripe for reappraisal.

Milwaukee Protocol

On David Bryne’s Laukabop record label, Bright Moments were my find of 2012 – this is typical of their (sheer) brass melancholy.

Think That You Might Be Wrong

Already you will see the only thread is the way songs jostle together, and I will save thematic links for those cleverer than me. Shades of the Band perhaps here, but Great Lake Swimmers came of age this year and I could have included two or three…

Take Time to Know Her

Percy Sledge? What the??? Having always steered far away from When A Man Loves A Woman this song has shredded that smug complacency. It has been an important part of my life soundtrack from the moment I heard it. There’s something so compelling in his voice, a quality that reminds me of Sam Cooke. I checked, after a fashion, and nothing else he recorded seems to measure up to this.

Sea of Japan

Makes me homesick for a place I have never visited. This obscure singer from Devon, UK has one trick which he applies with great success. Shy and introverted in concert, this tune channels of that inwardness and dumps it in the ocean.

Warm Wet Circles

This is the one concession to Prog, and every compilation should have at least one guilty please. This used to be, and may be again, one of my favourites, until a colleague remarked how Fish sounds like Phil Collins. It was good while it lasted though, and the imagery still rings true

The False Bride

A wildcard perhaps, but you occasionally encounter support acts who make you want to risk you money. Hubbert has spent years growing sad and large, but an album of collaborations seems to have helped him to turnthe corner. This track features one Alastair Roberts, darling of the Scottish folk scene and with a voice that will either wriggle with dastardly stealth into your innards or propel you to the skip button.

Bats in the Attic

While we are on a Scottish ocean-bent, King Creosote (rarely a performer so misleadingly named) produced a folk album about fisher-folk (sometimes abbreviated to FFF). Listen closely and you can almost hear the unique call of the Minch…

Hares on the Mountain

Shirley Collins has appeared on comps before, but this song – but even more so that voice that just seems to come from somewhere else altogether - has haunted me since I heard it for the first time this year. The guitar is care of Davey Graham. It is also a refreshing alternative to the male view that so pervades our pop.

He’s My Friend Until the End

Can you ever have enough roaring gospel? Cooke always had a spiritual quality, even when he was singing about sugar dumplings (none of that here this is a British compilation!), but balm for any troubled souls out there to play at the bitter end of the day.

What A Way to Go

The Appletree Theatre were gifted to me by my great friend John, an aficionado for sixties music. This one-off album is one to die for, and in my opinion good funeral music.

Undecided (reprise)

To send us on home, there simplest of songs from a complicated pair of Scousers Michael and Ian Head (slightly) better known as Shack and currently killing time on Noel Gallagher’s record label. Hugely hit and miss live, this song is hidden in a largely obscure album that was financed by a fan and put out under the name ‘Magical World of the Strands’.

Happy yuletide Miraclers.

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