Album of the Month: March 2007

Monotony is Underrated

I was once discussing music with my old Kiwi pal Johnny Bitburger in some nondescript “piano bar” in London. We were on the subject of electronica. As a graduate of Classical Music, Johnny was passionate about the role of monotony. It was, he thought, an underrated skill. It takes a good musician to master the form, building multiple layers of music with small shifts of focus on a sparse canvass. Most fail badly, ending up with something which is simply dull and tedious; other’s try and put too much into it, ending up with a wall of ear-aching cacophony (most trance I’ve heard would fall into one of these categories). But done well and monotony can be a mesmerising, almost transcendental musical experience. And this is exactly where the latest Swedish electronica hotshots Studio sit. Even at an early age, they have mastered the art of restraint and monotony to perfection.

A lot of the sound of Studio’s debut album Yearbook 1 reminds me of Happy Monday’s remix land - a great “baggy” sound that goes round and round in wonderfully sustaining loops and beats. There’s a good dash of Balearic in here too (references to “Solid Good Times” and “Beach Life” abound), and some bass lines shamelessly nicked from Peter Hook. Throw in a little reggae guitar, some retro VIC-20/A-Ha synth effects, and some (yet again) Duran Duran moments (what is it with that just now?) and you’ll get the general idea. The lead-singer (if you can call him that – he only shows up for two out of the ten tracks) has the same intonation as Shaun Ryder, but without the edge of menace. All the tracks have short, abstract titles, and in general last for anything between five to fifteen minutes. It’s the kind of music that I want to play at my (wholly imaginary) pool party this summer late at night. Apparently these songs have been around for a while on various limited edition 12 inches, which, of course, haven't even remotely registered on my aging radar. However they’ve now put a whole year's releases onto a CD album thingy for old fogeys like me and you to enjoy. If you liked the old "Madchester" scene – and I did – then you should get a copy of Studio's album immediately. If you do you’ll have what must be one of the year’s albums on your hands already – and it’s only March (well, almost)! 8/10

Recommended Wine: Yearbook 1 is definitely late-night, Mediterranean beach style summer music. Music this cool needs a cool wine to go with it, so I'm going for a fruity and fun number, in this case a California McManis Viognier from 2005.

Puking, Puking and More Puking

Sunday. I’m sure that, in a few weeks time, this will all be very comical. But right now it’s a disaster. Just as I’m about to board the last flight of the day to Heathrow, Bodil calls. She’s puking. Alice is puking too. As for Samuel it’s surely only a matter of time. This is the third time running that my flying somewhere has sparked a mass outbreak of multiple throwing-up at home. What is going on? I was sorely tempted to turn around at the gate when I get Bodil’s message, but she tells me to go on. Hope they’ll make it through tomorrow without too much hassle. Sunday morning at least was better. Scored a shed load of goals at football (the other team were only three men though). Good food left over from last night for lunch. Acke was playing well with Samuel, and the two of them with Alice spent most of the day building Lego and fighting over who had control of R2D2. We spent the afternoon on the local toboggan run. The calm before the storm.

Table Dusting

Saturday. Manage to squeeze in an argument with Bodil before half-ten about soft boiled eggs. I want the family to wait for me while I cook them before they dig in to breakfast (for this I am labelled a fascist). The kids ignore me and eat anyway. I eat alone. The clouds of doom and my sulk soon lift however and we’re back on track. I order a digital piano online to replace the already defunct heavy acoustic version in the basement, then we’re all off to Lidingö centrum. The library is (as usual) full of brand new CDs for me to hoard and take home and load into iTunes (today’s catch is “Those the Brokes” by The Magic Numbers, which is on a first listen pretty damn good). Back home, it feels like as soon as Samuel’s friend Gustav disappears home, the next friend (this time Acke) arrives. Another sleepover. But it’s all in the name of fun. Ponder whether to buy tickets to Joanna Newsom in April. Probably will. Manage a 5K run in minus three on snowy roads, but it fills the lungs and gives me a much needed energy kick. Good dinner (the Colonel’s Paprikas no less), with a fair but simple bottle of Georges Duboeuf's Beaujolais-Villages 2005. Watch an Atom Egoyan film when the kid’s are asleep called Where the Truth Lies, which is total rubbish. I’ve seen a few films by Egoyan and I’ve reached the conclusion that the guy simply cannot tell a story. There’s so much "table dusting" going on in the beginning of the film that it makes me want to heave. Nice pictures sure, but where’s the entertainment?

A little something for the weekend

Friday. Having worked my socks off on Thursday, I decided to recharge the batteries and take the afternoon off. This turned out to be a very wise move. I stopped by my favourite record shop in Stockholm (Skivfönstret) to have a chat with Jens, who talked me into buying no less than three new CDS, all of which turned out to be brilliant. Picked up Samuel early to take him to his tennis lesson - great to see him getting on and enjoying himself, but next Björn Borg? - probably not. Home early to cook up a feast. Things start to look good, so I raid my cellar for one of my better bottles. What a way to end the day! I fall asleep listening to the warm, lush sounds of Midlake, which is extraordinary stuff (you need to work on those lyrics though guys - big yawn).

And the wine? This was a Clos Du Marquis 1996, Saint-Julien (find this wine), the second wine of Ch. Léoville-Las Cases (2nd Growth), which is (apparently) one of the best buys going in Bordeaux. Deep warm red in colour with a magnificent nose of violets, smoke and lashings of berry fruits. Hints of vanilla and tobacco (although Bodil disagreed about the second of these). The taste of the wine is superb, balanced, warm and rounded, and fills the palate. The fruit lasts for ages and the spicy notes give it excellent legs. A truly exciting experience! 9/10. Get a bottle and try fit or yourself - you will not be disappointed!

Blue Screens and Marmalade

Thursday. Work is hell on earth. Don’t finish even when I get home. Scare the kids with my shouting at a blue screen on my computer when it eats all my work. The kind of day you wish you’d never bothered even getting out of bed for.

Wednesday. Spend the evening working up the Where’s My Teddy business proposal, which is getting there, albeit slowly. We’re almost at the point of booking a designer for the website. Could get a little more exciting from here on in.

Tuesday. What did I do today? The truth is I’ve absolutely no idea. Lesson? Write this blog every day. My goldfish memory simply cannot go back more than a few days and Tuesday has now lost to the tangy marmalade that is my subconscious.

B-Boy's Rap the Pape

Book Review - Alexis Lichine's Guide to the Wines & Vineyards of France (1979)

This is where it all started. I was having coffee at one of my absolute favourite bookshops (Scarthin Books, Cromford) a couple of years ago, when I spotted the Food and Drink section. Now, before I went over for what would become a fateful gander, I have to admit that I was like most other aspiring middle-class types. I thought I knew a little bit about wine. Like the fact that I generally preferred red over white, and that I enjoyed a bottle of Cavas from time to time to add a little sparkle. I also had a unfounded belief that French wine was probably better than new world stuff, and that because the Beastie Boys had once rapped about Châteauneuf-du-Pape, then that was probably something to aspire to. When at a supermarket, and presented with a million different labels and lands to choose from, I would rub my chin, check a couple of labels, pick up a couple of bottles to weigh them (why?), and then plump for something entirely at random based on the way the label appealed to me. It was, of course, total bollocks. I knew next to nothing about wine. Nor did I have any books about it (unless you want to count a single unread copy of Oz Clark's 1997 opus, Sainsburys' Pocket Wine Guide in this category). I did however have a few cookery books to my name (an unopened and expensive River Cafe picturebook, a well-thumbed traditional Thai book, a couple of Italian jobs, etc). With a bit of help from these books I could (and still am) able to throw the occasional decent bit of chow together. So I was in the mood to complement my foodie library with a drinks library, and at the same time try to fill in that black hole in my brain labelled "wine knowledge". Little did I know that my (typically) random choice on the subject - Alexis Lichine's Wines and Vineyards of France - would turn out to be one of the seminal books on the subject of appreciating and learning about wine. This is where it started.

Alexis Lichine seems to have lived one of those lives the rest of us can only dream about. Born in 1913 in Moscow, his family fled the revolution, moving first to France and then to the US, where they settled in 1934. Returning to Paris after completing his studies at the University of Pennsylvania, he took a job at the Herald Tribune where he was given an assignment to write about French Wine. After travelling around France's major wine regions, he returned to New York in 1935 and took up a job selling wine: a tough job given that the general level of wine knowledge in the US before the second world war was close to absolute zero. The onset of war saw Alexis turn his attention to Californian wine, where he helped to root out the practice of calling US wines after their French counterparts (at that point you could still buy a "Chablis" or a "Burgundy" wine from US winemakers). After Pearl Harbour Alexis joined Military Intelligence, which in essence meant supplying "liberated" fine clarets for the likes of Eisenhower, Patton and Churchill. After the war, he ended up with Churchill again, this time at the Hotel De Paris in Monte Carlo, where they shared a few choice bottles. After listening to a rambling discourse by Churchill on the subject of wine, Alexis had the nerve to correct him on a few points. After that Churchill said, "boy, from now on you do the talking and I'll do the listening". After the war, Alexis set up a shipping company in Bordeaux. Over time Alexis became one of the prime movers within the French wine world. He not only helped to establish the practice of bottling wines at the estate rather than after shipping (as was common in the UK market), but also became a respected grower in his own right with the purchases of Château Lascombes and Cantenac-Prieuré (soon to become Prieuré-Lichine). Lichine himself however was cagey about his own biography, preferring instead to let the wine do the talking. And that's what this book does in spades.

OK, so it was published in 1979, so it's going to be a little out of date (I doubt for instance if the hotels listed here still have the same telephone numbers). Do not let this put you off. This book is much more than just a casual glance around some of the wine growing regions of France. It is the wine lover's bible. It is packed full of quotes, anecdotes, asides, and real insights into the art of wine and wine-making which are timeless. Amongst other things we learn that in 1395, Philip the Bold banned the grape he called the "disloyal Gaamez", as it produced wine in great abundance but which had a, "very great and horrible harshness"; and that Alexandre Dumas said that Montrachet should be, "drunk on one's knees with one's hat in hand". Lichine says some very sensible things that would put some modern wine-tasters to shame too (referring to Chablis, he takes the description of a "flinty taste" to be metaphorical, for the simple reason that he has "never tasted flint"). We also learn that the Beastie Boys' favourite beverage ("New Castle of the Pope") can be made from no less than thirteen different grape varieties - a fact that could provide a lifetime's work for a ampelographer (you'll have to look that one up now, won't you?). Lichine powers through the great wines of Bordeaux, Burgundy, Côtes Du Rhône, Loire and Alsace with considerable intelligence and authority, and much of the writing here has stood the test of time. But given the changes in Southern France since 1979, the section of Languedoc and Roussillon is looking a little dated. The book ends with a great section on food and wine ("never serve Bordeaux and Burgundy together"), and the pleasures of Cognac and Armagnac. Lichine's book is a recognised masterpiece. If you only buy one wine book in your life, make this it, and then those days of looking numbly at the racks of supermarket shelves stacked with wine with absolutely no terms of reference will be a thing of the past. I guarantee it.

Icons? Samovars? Defintely no piano...

Monday. The piano that myself and the neighbours so painstakingly moved through the dark confines of our joined-up cellar is, according to the local piano tuner, beyond repair. Now we need to move it back again. This news does not impress the piano teacher at Sammy's school later the same day, who already looks down at us through her pince-nez as a dead loss family. Sammy meanwhile merrily bangs away at the keyboard all the same. Today I also find I'm on my way to Moscow. The last time I was in Russia - St Petersburg to be precise - the border control (all five hundred of them) that boarded the Helsinki train ransacked our luggage looking for samovars and icons (as you do). If they had been looking for counterfeit DVDs, then our party may well have been in trouble. Needless to say, the bureaucracy battle now facing me for this trip is enormous. If I'm to make the meeting in April, negotiations begin now. Last time I picked up a Russian visa I was conned out of a few hundred kroner because I had the temerity to pick up my documents a day late. We'll see how it goes this time round. Fingers crossed. Maybe I can sneak back a grand piano?

Better Batter Baking

Watch and Weep! Hilarious!

Skating on Thin Ice

Sunday. Start the day with a hat-trick of goals at football. Hurrah! A quick lunch of Toad in the Hole and then the whole family is off ice-skating on the local lake. Terrific stuff! It's plus three mind, so we're all a bit weary, but no-one disappears under the water (remember The Omen?). It's a wonderful day, and I finally make up for Valentines day with some red roses (half price!). We put a fire on and have a fika with the neighbours. At his swimming lesson, Sam jumps off the medium sized high-board, which is impressive because you could see he was dead scared. Watch Life on Mars, which is crap. Still reading Kafka on the Shore, which is ridiculous. But the day finishes well despite last minute mishaps. My body aches and it feels good to be alive. Sometimes it's a pleasure being in Sweden - they take their leisure time seriously. My contribution was for once to leave the laptop at work. Stress free.

Ikea

It's Saturday, we still have some money in the bank, and we haven't paid our homage recently to the shrine of consumerism. So Ikea it is then. We spend what little we have on pointless soft-wood clobber. But this is a spiritual excrecise isn't it? As Scruton said, "When human beings cease their wandering and mark out a place as their own, their first instinct is to furnish it with things which have no function – ornaments, pictures, knick-knacks – or with things which, while possessing a function, are valued more for other reasons: for their associations, their beauty, their way of fitting in. This instinct for the purposelessness has a purpose – namely to make these objects into an expression of ourselves and of our common dwelling place, to endow them with marks of order, legitimacy and peaceful possession. In other words objects, when they form part of a home, are endowed with a soul. […] The enchantment of things in the home is part of a larger spiritual project. Home has its customs, its rituals, its special times and places. Or if it does not, it is so much the less a home." But does this include semi-disposable products from Ikea? Probably not!

Party

Friday. Party Night. Well, sort of. I don't drink much (a sign of old age?), and leave in time for the last tube home after midnight. The idea of finishing off a dodgy bottle of port in someone's kitchen just doesn't appeal as much as it used too. No hangover the next day mind.

Métro, Boulet, Dodo

Tube, Job, Bed.

Strange Train

Wednesday. Valentines Day. Following a tip from the Colonel, I drop by John Rushton's shoe shop (93 Wimpole St) for a pair of quality handmade seconds. John Rushton himself reminds me a lot of my Grandad when he was younger, and he's absurdly helpful. I plump for a nice pair of Alfred Sargent Brogues. John informs me that, "a Gentleman should have four pairs of good quality shoes, two brown and two black, and that you should never wear the same shoe two days running. And when you're feet aren't in these shoes, then a good pair of unpolished tree shoes should be". The price was a knock down half-price (75 instead of 150) for a blemish that was not visible to the naked eye, so not bad I reckon. I'll be back for those other three pairs when I get paid.

Standstead was the pits. A crowded, heinous, angry place. Relieved by the trumpet fanfare when we land (nice touch!). Stockholm central an underground version of Stanstead. On the tube home there are two extremely attractive women conspicuously snogging each other (and no, I'm not making that up!). Was it me, or was there a tangible erotic frisson running through the train? Fail to buy flowers on the way home, which in retrospect was not a very wise move. Uh-oh.

Tempestuous Sex

Tuesday. Hard day at work, but well prepared with a big fry up. A quick dash to Fortnum and Mason afterwards to buy wine and my second rendezvous in two days at the Piccadilly Cafe, this time in the evening with old friends. JP shows me some of his recently released Stasi files from his time in Czechoslovakia in the eighties. On a single day he had been followed by over thirty cars and fourteen secret agents. The files also contained an entry by a hand-writing psychologist who had labelled him as susceptible to "tempestuous sex". It must have been a strange time, living in a house that was bugged and being followed everywhere. We enjoyed a bottle of 1998 Les Pagodes de Cos during all this, which was sublime (8/10). Off to a pub for a chat afterwards. Still raining. Back at the Old Folk's Home the Ipod is working again. Fall asleep listening to the Shins, which gets better with very listen. Deep sleep without dreams.

Sunrise with Sigur

Monday. Taxi then early bus to Stockholm Central Station. Ipod is working for once (it's been dropped in the bath, and is since only intermittent) and I catch a wonderful sunrise listening to Sigur Rós. Epiphany? Not far off. Sleep on the plane. London is harsh and damp, and it looks like it's been raining here forever. Lunch at the Piccadilly Cafe with the Colonel (English sausage!). Will the Colonel come and join me in Bologna in June for the drive home to hoard wines through italy and Germany? We'll see. Work. A few pints and then a Thai dinner in the evening. Check into the Old Folk's Home slightly the worse for wear. Ipod now silent again. Sleep.

Knee Trouble

An early outing to the football pitch. Score two goals, putting a break on my recent dry run. Further kitchen repairs (when will it ever end?). Continued failure to get neighbour's piano installed. Fell out with the wife whilst installing kitchen extractor fan (my fault - hand me that screwdriver, no that one!, etc). Alice and Samuel swimming lessons. Attempt a graceful slide down a sheer piece of ice on a hill, doing well until half-way down then take a nasty tumble. A bloody knee the result. Looking at flight times to London tomorrow (how early!). Five thirty start. Life on Mars on the telly, half a bottle of wine later. Kids asleep. Relax and try not to fall asleep instantly (always a danger on Sundays). Lights out.

Amon's On His Way!

The new album Foley Room is due out in March, so keep you eye's peeled! Until then check out Amon's MySpace.

Proper Cocker

Jarvis is at it again, the old tant (you've got to love him). In his latest interview (Word), he's going on about people who have kids because they can't handle going out anymore. Well, maybe there's a grain of truth in that. Personally these days I tend to go out by staying in (neighbours have just been round for diner). Jarvis was also coruscating about tired parents who let their kids get away with murder because they're so tired themselves - an endless diet of game boys, chocolate, crisps, pop, etc. This will be the first generation of kids that, due to obesity, will not live as long as their parents. Shame on us!

On another note we're still negotiating with the neighbours about getting their piano over to our house. Fingers crossed this will happen tomorrow, as Sammy is going on about it everyday. We spent a few hours in town today looking at electric pianos, and I also sold about 50 CDs today for a total of bugger all - about 200 SEK, which probably just about paid for the fuel bill of driving to town. I also learned today that I've completely lost interest in looking through hundreds of second-hand CDs in grotty basements - it's all iTunes for me from now on. Damn sight cheaper too!

The Emperor’s New Clothes?

I can hear what some of my friend’s are saying out there. Wine? Why bother? What’s the point? I mean, it’s all the same at the end of the day isn’t it? A bottle of plonk is a bottle of plonk.

Wrong.

More often than not, the people who say this about wine would never contemplate saying the same thing about music. True, all wine comes from grapes. But it’s equally true that all music comes from the same basic set of twelve notes. But as you and I both know, that’s not the same as saying that everything that stems from that (sorry!) is the same.

The Music Factory

Just like music, the majority of wine you’ll find is mediocre, or at best merely palatable (respectable?). Like music a lot of wine is made for mass markets and big sales, and as such it appeals to simple tastes. If you’re drinking cheap supermarket wine, it’s odds on that you are quaffing something like a Stock, Aitken and Waterman production, and that you’re glass is the equivalent of a Mel and Kim single. There are of course exceptions – the odd radio-friendly tune that is annoyingly catchy (most of Concha y Toro’s wines fall into this “cheap and cheerful” category). But all the same, it’s never going to be great.

A little further upstream and you find yourself in the wine category that’s a little more like the albums you actually go out and buy, or songs that find their way into your top hundred singles of all time (sadly however it’s not yet possible to download wines on bittorrent). These wines by necessity tend to be a bit pricier. For the most part this is because the wines tend to be from vineyards practising crop-thinning, hand-picking, and grape selection. They also require a little more care in the vinification and maturation processes – all of which have a cost attached to them (but let’s not rule out plain greed on the part of the winemaker either!). This is where you’ll find your better wines, the ones that can transform an otherwise mundane or satisfactory experience into something extra-ordinary (personally, I would put the wines of Château Batailley here).

And then there’s the rest, the wines that can be as outstanding and exciting as a life-defining song by your all-time favourite band. Unfortunately, because this is the wine world, and because the laws of supply and demand play a part, these are way out of the price range of mere mortals such as you and I, but are no doubt the usual mid-week fare of Posh and Becks (god damn ’em!). They are few and far between and need to be treasured.

Wines and Record Labels

We can take the music theme a bit further. Think of a wine producer as a favourite record label. Sometimes they produce some excellent stuff, sometimes not, but you usually know what you’re letting yourself in for. As to the wine regions themselves, these make an even bigger difference, as these are the artists themselves. Take top Bordeaux wines for example. This is where you'll find the kingpins of wine - the Bob Dylans, U2s and Coldplays of this world. Compare this with Bourgogne (Burgundy), which as a wine region is ridiculously confusing - more like those small, infuriating records labels that specialise only in mind-bending electronica on white labels – music that is hard to fathom and equally hard to get hold of (e.g. the kind of stuff Bleep does all the time). With Bourgogne, you tend to find the groove you like and stick with it, because life’s too short to find out about all of it.

So the next time you’re down Tesco’s, ask yourself this: do I really fancy another bottle of Rick Astley, or do I fancy something a little more sublime? Take it from me, discovering wine is like discovering real music for the first time, or like finding a door in your house that leads to a completely new universe next door. You just need to open it!

The Decanting Myth Explored

To decant or not to decant, that is the question...

After the recent demise of the world's best website, namely www.wine-journal.com, I'm now on the look out for others. Wine Library TV has made a good impression so far, and the episode on decanting, though not definitive, is highly recommended. Don't be put off by that sullen look on the presenter's face - he does end up with a smile on his face at the end, and who would blame him given what he's tasting! Anyway, see what you think.

Oscillating Wildly

Not a bad place Oslo, I think. Not that I saw too much of it mind, as our hotel was in the lap of the gods high above the town. It was also mostly dark (it is winter after all). Still, the log fires burned brightly and the food and drink was heavenly. No chance to try out the Wine Tasting room however, due to the lack of a sommelier (bugger). Did 30 lengths in the pool followed by a sauna which almost killed me. Decided to travel by train too to cut down on plane travel - but this proved to be a huge mistake, as I ended up surrounded by loads of spotty students from some local art school. Started reading Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami on the train. Is it me, or is this simply dead boring? Why is this writer so hyped? I got so fed up I actually started to read some emails instead. Nice to be home though. Last week Prague, next week London. Will my kids remember who I am when I see them tomorrow at breakfast? Will I remember who they are? Nuff.

Where's Me Jumper? Where's Me Jumper?

Saturday night. After dinner at the neighbour's house it's a quick ride into town to catch the Sultans of Ping at Debaser. And YES - just for once - my name is on the guest list. Hurrah! As much as I hate it when I'm the one in the queue (which is almost always), I have to say that there is real pleasure to be had from gliding effortlessly past a long sorry shower of cold and miserable people queueing outside a club. And pleasure, as ever, is always better when it's spiced with a little schadenfreude, eller hur?

The free tickets were in part due to the skills of my friend from Going Underground and the work we did together on the festival Access All Areas (now defunct?). AAA is where I also met Morty McCarthy - general dynamo, best-selling author and former drummer with The Sultans of Ping.

The gig itself was easily worth the hassle of picking myself up from a warm dinner-table and a fresh glass of wine to head off into the wintry wasteland that is Stockholm in February. The Sultans were energetic, loaded (that was a big bottle of vodka doing the rounds on the stage), and loads of fun. Due to the age of the band, there was a considerable number of middle-aged ex-pat Paddies and Brits in the crowd (me included), as well as a good number of ridiculously young looking Swedes (do 18-year olds really look that young these days?). The singer Niall had a lot of fun with this setup - at one point he turned to the audience who he thought weren't putting enough into the proceedings and said, "I know, you're worried about the kids". He was clearly on top form, and the band rocked their way through a big set, as well was picking up a few extra numbers the crowd asked for (someone should tell Niall that the residents of Sweden are not best hailed as "Swiss Kids" though). The new stuff wasn't bad either - I recommend "Girl Watchin" if you can find it. Of course the best number of the night was the Jumper Song. Did I jump up and down? Nah, but I did stamp my foot in time. My stage-diving days are over. I have got the kids to think about you know.

Michten Blichten Mein Frau!

I think I spotted by friend the Colonel (usually resident in Berlin or London), hanging around the bar in Prague Airport. And who is that girl he's with? Does Angelika know?

Album of the Month: January 2007

If Tom Waits had been from the North of England, he would probably have called this album Bubble and Squeak. As it is, the title Orphans relates to songs that either didn't survive the first cut on various recent albums, or didn't fit in on others. And boy there's a lot of them - 54 in fact, spanning three albums. To be honest, I've been burned by this kind of failure to kill your darlings before, the most recent experience being Sufjan Stevens' album Avalanche (an album of scraps and titbits that were in the most part wisely left off his stunning masterpiece, Illinois). So I was, to say the least, hesitant about buying this mammoth outing, even if it was by Waits.

It's not easy getting an overview of the album. To start with the 3 cds are so crammed full of music that it demands the kind of listening time that, frankly, I no longer have. Second, Tom has never been precisely easy on the ear, and after a few songs of rasping, banging and scratching, even the best of fans can start developing a headache. Still Tom and his wife Ms Brennan (how much influence does she have by the way?) have done a good job of making this Herculean task a little easier. The songs are basically split into three types, Brawlers (a raw and bluesy kind of mix between the Waits of Mule Variations and Heart Attack and Vine), Bawlers (ballad country), and Bastards (a storytelling, broken patchwork of songs and my personal favourite of the three). Like the man said in an interview, each CD is a door, and what you open tells you something about what you'll find on the other side. Nice. And as you'd expect, all of these songs have that by now familiar mix of American Vaudeville and the Dark Cabaret of Kurt Weill (and yes, we do finally get a cover on one of his songs here). At the centre of all the music, grunts, and whip cracks is the linchpin that is Waits' voice - the unstoppable force that holds everything together. For me, this album is not about the songs or even the stories (although there are some stand out tracks), so much as what Swedes would call the ljudbild (or sound picture) that gets you in the end. The one track that doesn't fit into all this is the track Road to Peace, when Waits lets his mask slip to deliver a diatribe against the war in Iraq (does the world need yet another artist going on about this?). Pity that one didn't make the cutting room floor this time round too.

Overall, stunning. 9/10. Keep 'em coming Tom!

If you like Tom, why not try the Tiger Lillies - similar but with a voice at the opposite end of the spectrum!

Suggested Wines to Accompany your Listening Pleasure

OK, given the three different flavours of the three cds, I'll have to go with three suggestions.

In the company of Bastards, I'm tempted to suggest the Australian Shiraz of the same name (Old Bastard Shiraz), except that I've never tried it and it is hugely expensive, so why not go for a cheaper version of the same, in other words a Barossa Shiraz from Peter ("Bishop of Barossa") Lehmann, who is, after all, a bit of a cantankerous and jolly old git himself.

Bawlers, demands something a little more relaxed and complex, so go for a refined Bourgogne, say a Sylvain Cathiard.

For Brawlers forget wine, it's beer you're after, and a cheep lager at that, preferably in a can and a bit too warm!

Bottoms Up!