Alphabet Soup Week 26: The M Tracks

A first for me - a column written at 33,000 feet and beamed down to you across the satellite interwebs. What a magical world we live in!!

Jun 27, 2024

Well this is a first! I’ve started writing this week’s installment at 33,000 feet a little over an hour into our flight from New York’s JFK to London’s Heathrow Airport. My wife and I have just wrapped up a lovely few days in New York. With only a couple outings on the agenda (more on that later) there was plenty of time to relax and begin unwinding after the craziness that enveloped my life over the last few weeks.

On Tuesday of next week my wife and I will set out on the first of the two long distance trails that we’ll be walking between my retirement from work last week and our relocation from Bermuda to the UK in January. The South West Coast Path is England’s longest waymarked long distance footpath, comprising 630 miles of coastal walking from Minehead in Somerset, through the counties of Devon and Cornwall, terminating in Poole in Dorset. Over the course of 10 weeks, with 62 days of walking along with 7 rest days, we’ll log an elevation gain of 35,000 metres (115,000 feet), almost four times the height of Mount Everest.

Both of our upcoming long distance walks will be on a supported basis, meaning our main luggage will be transferred between our accommodations daily, leaving us to carry our daypacks with water, lunch, snacks, waterproofs, and a first aid kit. We’ll spend the evenings at a selection of bed and breakfasts, country inns, and small hotels. With a shower and comfortable bed at the end of each day, and the promise of a hearty pub meal every night (and a full English every morning), we should remain well rested and well fueled for the adventure.

Let’s jump into this week’s playlist!

ALPHABET SOUP WEEK 26: The M Tracks

This week’s selections:

TRACK: Murder's Home from Prison Songs Volume One: Murderous Home (1997)

ARTIST: Alan Lomax

I’m not sure how and when Alan Lomax popped up on my musical radar, but I know the first CD that made its way into my collection was Prison Songs Volume One: Murderous Home released by Rounder Records in 1997. There’s no possible way I could do justice to this noted ethnomusicologist who spent over 6 decades compiling field recordings of folk music in the US and Europe. A wonderful summary of his life and legacy can be found in the keynote address made by William Ferris at The American Folklife Center symposium in 2006.

The AllMusic review for this release provides the context for these recordings:

“In the late '40s, ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax went to Parchman Farm in Mississippi to record African-American prisoners. This penitentiary was renowned for its anachronistically harsh conditions, and it's something of a miracle that Lomax was allowed in to document the music in the first place. Most of the material was recorded while the men were actually at work, and reflects the rhythms of chopping trees, splitting fireweed, chopping weeds, and other such tasks. The liner notes make much of how the subjugation and misery of the community are reflected in the music. While the dreariness of their lives was no doubt genuine, the music itself -- mainly gospel-ish work songs and chants geared toward getting the men through their daily grinds, usually sung a cappella, often by groups -- is not depressing to hear. True, it's hard to call it uplifting knowing what the prisoners were enduring, but there's an enormous pride and spiritual strength.”

The opening track, Murder’s Home (alternatively named The Murderer’s Home) is the perfect introduction to an album that is haunting, meditative and compelling in equal measure.

TRACK: Machengoidi from Ali & Toumani (2010)

ARTIST: Ali Farka Touré and Toumani Diabaté

Ali & Toumani, released on the World Circuit label in 2010, was the follow-up to 2005’s Grammy-winning In The Heart Of The Moon. The album pairs two legendary Malian musicians, Ali Farke Touré on guitar and vocals and Toumani Diabaté on kora. This release represents the last recorded output by Touré before he passed away in 2006. Both of these gentlemen are absolute masters of their craft, with Touré appearing on Rolling Stone’s and Spin’s list of 100 greatest guitarists of all time (at number 76 and 37 respectively) and Diabaté making the Independent’s list of the 50 best African artists in a 2006 article (although Touré’s absence from the same list is mystifying).

TRACK: Murder from Blame It On Me (1997)

ARTIST: Alana Davis

Alana Davis, an American singer-songwriter from New York, released four albums between 1997 and 2018. Her debut album, 1997’s Blame It On Me, was by far her most successful release commercially with the lead single, a cover of Ani DiFranco’s 32 Flavors, spending seven weeks on the Billboard 200 where it peaked at number 157 in February 1998. Murder, my favorite track (her cover of 32 Flavors is good but I’m partial to DiFranco’s original), was later sampled by Jay-Z on There’s Been a Murder on his fourth album Vol. 3... Life and Times of S. Carter.

As you make your way through this week’s playlist, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Do any of these tracks really stand out for you? What do you like? What don’t you like?

Please click the button below to leave a comment.

TRACK: Misery Is a Butterfly from Misery is a Butterfly (2004)

ARTIST: Blonde Redhead

A second appearance on Alphabet Soup for Blonde Redhead as Elephant Woman from the same album appeared back in week 10. Misery Is a Butterfly, the band’s sixth album, was my first exposure to their music and while I haven’t explored much of their catalog, I did enjoy last year’s Sit Down For Dinner which just squeaked into the back end of my 2023 AOTY List.

TRACK: Milk from Garbage (1995)

ARTIST: Garbage

Garbage returns to Alphabet Soup for the second time (their first appearance was The Trick Is To Keep Breathing from 1998’s Version 2.0) and this time it’s a standout (for me) track from their self-titled debut released in 1995. I vividly recall the first time I heard this album at a record store listening station in the Park Lane Mall in Halifax. It felt so fresh and new and unlike much of the music that was popular at the time and was an instant purchase.

Milk, the fifth and final single from the album, failed to match the critical success of the prior single Stupid Girl (#2 in the US, #4 in the UK), peaking at number 10 in the UK Singles Chart while failing to chart in North America.

TRACK: Morning from Morning Phase (2014)

ARTIST: Beck

My god, what an incredible pair of albums Beck released in Sea Change (2002) and Morning Phase (2014). While three studio albums and twelve years separated these two releases, they’ll always be linked in my mind due to the similarity in their emotional weight, sonic palette and melancholy themes. I’ve been hoping for a decade that these two albums would be joined by a third to complete a trilogy that (in my mind) would stand as the pinnacle of Beck’s career. Given the 12-year gap between the first two albums, I’m expecting the third of the series in 2026 (call me crazy, it’s fine! but be sure to come back here to comment if I turn out to be correct)

TRACK: M from Seventeen Seconds (1980)

ARTIST: The Cure

Changing gears a little and heading back to the early years of The Cure’s amazing catalog with M from their second studio album, 1980’s Seventeen Seconds. Representing the first in a trilogy of legendary gothic rock albums (to be followed by 1981’s Faith and 1982’s Pornography) the album represented a shift toward a darker sound from the pop-punk of their 1979 debut Three Imaginary Boys.

TRACK: Mandinka from Lion and the Cobra (1987)

ARTIST: Sinéad O'Connor

In the week 20 installment of Alphabet Soup, I discussed how moved I was when first hearing Jackie, the opening track from Sinéad O'Connor’s debut album (“I was awestruck and it remains one of only a few albums over the years that so deeply affected me upon my first listen.”). The strains of Jackie faded away, only to be followed by the opening guitar riff of Mandinka; just two tracks in and I was hooked on an album that would soundtrack my last year of high school. Over 35 years after its release this remains one of my favorite debut albums of all time.

TRACK: Meds from Meds (2006)

ARTIST: Placebo

Meds, the title track from Placebo’s fifth studio album, peaked at number 35 on the UK Singles Chart with the album hitting number seven on the UK Album Chart and becoming the band’s first to break into the US Billboard 200 where it reached number 180.

Although I hadn’t listened to the band for some time, probably at least a decade, in 2022 I found myself taken by Never Let Me Go which was released late in the first quarter. That album both literally and figuratively never let me go and would ultimately work its way up to number one on my 2022 AOTY List.

TRACK: Mayonaise from Siamese Dream (1993)

ARTIST: Smashing Pumpkins

The first appearance for Smashing Pumpkins in the Alphabet Soup series (and certainly not the last) comes in the form of Mayonaise the song (not to be confused with Mayonnaise the condiment) from the band’s second studio album, 1993’s Siamese Dream. This was the first album I owned by the band and remains my favorite (although Mellon Collie and Adore both come close). I’ve found very little to enjoy from the band’s output since 2000’s Machina, but those early albums still hold up so well.

Life in the key of M: Manhattan and McLachlan

As my wife and I begin transitioning into the intermission between work life and retirement, I expect to move away from the more philosophical musings with which I’ve been wrapping up these columns and shift towards a photo essay and/or series of observations from the prior week. Today we wrap up with some highlights of the past few days my wife and I spent in New York City.

Manhattan

We were really only in Manhattan for one reason (known only to me) as both my wife and I find the city a little intense and somewhat of a sensory overload. One of the things I do love about New York is the food and it was nice to visit a few favorites: Italian with a great friend at Trattoria Dell’Arte on 57th, great breakfasts at our hotel (Michelangelo Hotel on 51st), perfectly smoked barbecue at Hill Country Barbecue Market on 26th, and the best pizza in the world (it’s always a must visit for me) at Razza over in Jersey City. We also enjoyed some lovely lattes at Devoción just up from Union Square.

McLachlan

The real reason we stopped over in New York City on the way to London, about which my wife wasn’t aware until it happened, was to catch Sarah McLachlan on her Fumbling Towards Ecstasy 30th Anniversary Tour. The album has always been a favorite of mine and is also one of my wife’s Desert Island Discs. When I heard that McLachlan would be touring the album for the 30th anniversary it was a no-brainer for me to try and squeeze the concert in between retirement and our UK hiking. Thankfully the timing worked perfectly. This was a surprise for my wife and she was as excited as I’ve seen her in a long time (and that’s saying something given her naturally exuberant nature).

I knew that McLachlan had blown out her voice early on in rehearsals for the tour and I was really hoping her voice would hold up through the entire tour. I’d been reading reviews from recent stops on the tour and by all accounts her voice was in fine form. But the question was there: would she still have it? would she still be able to hit the notes? The answer? An unequivocal YES!

McLachlan opened with a duo of hits (Sweet Surrender and Building a Mystery) and some deeper cuts from some of her other albums. From the first note she was impeccable, as you can hear below (hopefully you can hear it, it sounds okay on my phone).

After a quick costume change (she shared with the audience that she’d been instructed by her daughter that she absolutely must have a costume change), she launched into the entire Fumbling Towards Ecstasy album from start to finish. It was sublime, better by far than I had any right to expect over 30 years after its initial release.

But I was waiting. Because I knew what was coming. Fear, the eleventh track on the album, is characterized by the sort of crystal clear high-pitched angelic singing that has always felt to me like a studio creation, something that could never be replicated in the concert experience. Surely the notes just had to be too high and too sustained for an already concert-weary voice, one that’s been supported throughout the tour by a series of steroids and liberal on-stage sips of tea.

But I’d read some reviews of her recent shows and they were glowing, even (and especially) when it came to this song. So I was hopeful. When it arrived, I just wasn’t prepared for what I saw and heard. I was overwhelmed by the sheer beauty, power and artistry in her voice. Recalling it now, there’s a hitch in my breath and the tears start welling; it was just that incredible and intense of an experience for me. Absolutely astounding, better even than it sounded on the album all those years ago.

My wife Tina was more affected than I was - she was in tears from the first note to the last and sang along for the entirety of the performance. It feels like we’ve just shared something extremely magical and have perhaps planted one of the finest memories of our 25+ year relationship. As concert experiences go, and I’ve had a few, this has to be a top three for me. If you have a chance to see her on this tour, please do yourself a favor and get a ticket. You won’t be disappointed.

That’s it for me! I’ll see you next week as we move on to the Artists Filed Under N.

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Here’s the link to the running playlist which is updated on a weekly basis as each new installment is published:

ALPHABET SOUP RUNNING PLAYLIST

Tracks missing from the Spotify playlist:

Allegory by Murray Attaway (Week 02)
Face Me and Smile by The Lover Speaks (Week 12)
From Your Mouth by God Lives Underwater (Week 13)

Thank you for reading Joy in the Journey, I appreciate you being here! If there’s someone in your life you think may enjoy this post, feel free to share it.