In no particular order, here's the albums that made it past my gate-keeper skills to languish forever on The Shelves Of Permanence this week.
The new Smashing Pumpkins album (in case you didn't recognise it by the cover) heads right on back to 1991 for its self-referential cues... if you were once a fan but subsequently thought they got bloated and lazy, this should put them back on the radar for you. At just over half an hour long, it's worth finding out for yourself doncha think?
The Chris Robinson Brotherhood: always under-rated so far as I'm concerned but then, wasn't that always Chris Robinson's cross to bear? Great album artwork probably won't help the band out with having people buy/listen to this but don't say I didn't give you a good shove in the right direction.
I've also rewound my ass back in time this week looking for inspiration from those who did it first and did it best. I fired up these two spoken word albums from Kerouac and Ginsberg and came to the conclusion that the majority of spoken word albums that came after these was just pretending.
Thus inspired, maybe I'll get on with that spoken word album of my own I kept threatening to release.
Finally... Electric Boys are a band I have loved very much since forever ago. Dumb people overlook them time and again as something they're not but those people will miss out. If you're on a streaming service, do your soul a favour and fire up the Quattro...
And while I've been giving those things access through my ears, I've been dancing with Murakami:
It's special. I'll never convince you to pick it up if you've never lived into Murakami's house before but I'll give it a whirl:
Portrait painter splits up with his wife and moves into a house in the mountains that belongs to his friends' father (who was also a painter). Said portrait painter finds a picture in the loft and in the corner of it, there is a man from a different time peering into the scene through a trapdoor. There is also a bell that won't stop ringing in a pit in the woods, a two feet tall concept, a peculiar neighbour with more money than sense and a phantom stranger in a white Subaru... who may or may not be important to the story.
Come on. You're either in or out with Murakami after that, surely.