Love Me Again

I consider myself supremely lucky to have had a few good friends who worked in record stores, while, and this is key, never actually working in one myself. That way I had access to plenty of music-store-geek discussions, but I was spared the soul-deadening exposure to entire days of music appreciation and popular-taste condescension. Most importantly, my friends could tip me off to the good jams in the recent arrivals section. It’s kind of like being in the mob and having an informant in the police department. My good friend Josh worked at a record store in Nashville for a spell. He hooked me up with a few choice slabs of Anthony Braxton and Sun Ra vinyl, and once, while I was in the thick of a serious Zombies obsessive binge, focusing mainly on Odessey and Oracle, Josh sent me a compilation of singer Colin Blunstone’s post-Zombie solo material. At the time I had a hard time dealing with some of the grandiose chamber pop aspects of it, but I’ve since come around. They’re re-releasing Blunstone’s One Year, and upon relistening, you can hear traces of the hushed Nordic bossa of Nick Drake and the ambitious art-pop of Elvis Costello.

“Misty Roses” - Colin Blunstone