My Blue Heaven

Everything Begins And Ends At Exactly The Right Time

Have started to slowly absorb the new Bluebottle Kiss album, “Come Across”. After only 1 or 2 listens, some songs definitely appeal to me, while others have yet to grow on me. I find with Bluebottle Kiss, patience is required, as it grows on you, more and more with each listen. I’m unsure whether “Come Across” will be as good as “Revenge Is Slow”.. at the moment, the latter remains my favourite BBK album.

There’s a long and rather eloqent review of the cd at Oz Music Project – and the last paragraph pretty much expresses what I’ve been thinking (and then some)..

“‘Revenge Is Slow’ was never going to be easy to follow up, but ‘Come Across’ does admirably well. Instead of lingering on the past, sitting on one’s accomplishments, it finds Bluebottle Kiss still experimenting, using its past not as an illusion to cope with the present so much as a means to negotiate a way forward. This is a record about endings and passage, of how to proceed when one has crash-landed in unfamiliar territory, of how to go on when the familiar roadmaps no longer apply to the terrain on which one finds one’s self stranded. Though not as accessible as ‘Revenge Is Slow’, this is a record that, although it misses a few, hits most of its marks and weaves a deep texture which only sustained listening will fully reveal. That Bluebottle Kiss continue to reward their listeners in such fashion is testament to the band’s durability and commitment to the creative, defiant spirit of rock music, when so many of their more heralded contemporaries find themselves mired in self-perpetuating market logic. A little dirt about the ankles it seems, is far more conducive to innovative, affecting, enduring music than bearing the fetters of sanctioned glamour.”

Jazz class last night was alright. We did this really hard exercise – to impro over the jazz standard “All The Things You Are”, through 10 different key changes! Great practice for our jazz improvisation & sightreading.. though I, admittedly, sucked at it. Hm.. time to brush up on my jazz modes! We took a chorus each at first, but then he changed tact and made us take 1 line each (8 bars), through all 10 chorus’s. We really had to be on the ball for that one!

[Update: 1:15pm]

This entry at LuckyKat’s blog makes me wish I lived in the US.. if only for their autumns… *sigh*

Current listening :: “Come Across” – Bluebottle Kiss

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