#seldomseenkid

Elbow is a band I discovered through my cafe lounging career during my university days. There is this student / artsy cafe / pub / bar / restaurant in Opatovická street in downtown Prague called Velryba (The Whale). It has a very calming atmosphere during the day, especially the back lounge (pictured below), and just the right level of liveliness in the evenings, so you can hang out with friends, celebrate end of exams or whatever without having to shout over too much music or noise just to hear each other. I used to be almost regular there. I even referred to it as ‘my downtown living room’ at one stage. And the best things about it were the dead hours in the middle of the afternoon with very few people there and the guy who worked the afternoon shifts in the back lounge around 2009 - 2011 ... or his taste in music to be specific. I used to go there for a daily fix of caffeine and new music, usually asking “And by the way, what was the album you played about 15 minutes ago?“  when paying for my coffee. On one occasion he answered: “The Elbow.“

The album was The Seldom Seen Kid, the 4th album of the Mancunian alternative band called Elbow. Their previous album, Leaders of the Free World  (2005) was great too, but I do prefer this one. Nick Southall of Drowned in Sound described the album so well I will hardly come up with anything different and more accurate, so I may as well quote him. He wrote that their 4th album “is reassuringly boring on initial contact. Reassuring because if Elbow fans know anything, it’s that the band they love make music that rewards revisiting, that slowly unfurls itself over time to reveal sonic and emotional depths inconceivable at the first glimpse. If The Seldom Seen Kid jumped out and stamped itself on the dance floor or airwaves from the off, you’d know something was amiss.Because the joy of Elbow is in the details, both of Guy Garvey’s beautiful gutter poetry and his band’s wondrous arrangements. ... When Garvey opens his mouth to sing it is to express the details of real human stories, not anonymous lines that anyone could project upon.“ The Seldom Seen Kid album is full of reflections on life and loss. It is dedicated to and named in memory of a friend of the band who died 2 years prior the release. It’s the first album the band has produced completely by themselves. They did everything - recording, mixing, producing - without any outside help. And they have done it well.

This album is so balanced it took me almost a full day and 7 or 8 listens to work out which 5 of them to highlight. The fact that my original list had 9 songs on it while the whole album consists of 11 songs already tells you something. I brought it down to 6, but as usually, I aimed for 4 songs, but I really could not bring myself to axe the last one.

Grounds for Divorce is a song with a stomping rhythm, monstrous riff which Mark Potter has had kicking about in the wings for 10 years and this is followed by a bass-run tearing through the middle f the song. It has an anthemic quality and it is very disturbing and yet somehow binds the song together. Btw, “the hole in my neighbourhood” is an underground bar.

Mirrorball is a song gently chiming, it swells and flows like a morning breeze. It’s a romantic ballad with gorgeous piano line through.

Guy Garvey mentioned that the Audience with the Pope is sort of a “Bond theme if Bond was from Bury (their home town in Greater Manchester) and a recovering Catholic.”

One Day Like This is a 7 minute gospel infused anthem. It’s a joyfull romantic celebration of the love present right now, right here.

The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver is an a magnificent orchestral epic  about the negative effects of success. It’s a song with a sence of heaviness about it, yet at the same it is gracefull and elegant. Like a dancing elephant in a tutu skirt. And it both soothes and swells the soul.

Happy Saturday, relax and enjoy.

Album highlights: - Grounds for Divorce - Mirrorball - Audience with the Pope - One Day Like This - The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver

Playlist:  https://spoti.fi/3bB5lH7