It’s the last WIS of 2023 and this is a (nearly) Hogmanay Special picking six tunes from the year gone by, before we leap headlong into 2024. Enjoy!

First Word

Another (slightly) shorter than normal holiday edition of WIS looking back at music released in 2023. I think all bar one of artists listed below have already had a track on the blog since it began back in February. And a couple of these have been from record releases from this year. But you won’t expect me to apologise for this, nor will you have to be picked off the floor when you see there is a Wilco track in there…

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Levee – Wilco (2023)

Best get this one out the way first. After thirty years, the wonderful Wilco released their 13th album Cousin at the end of September, about four weeks after I saw them in the Usher Hall in Edinburgh (see WIS 8Sep23) Following 2022’s low-key roots country record, the band engaged Welsh singer-songwriter Cate Le Bon as producer for Cousin and her interventions seem to have re-awakened their more experimental, arty side that hooked me on the band back in the late 90s. On some tracks, sounds are gleefully distorted, guitars loop hypnotically and static crackles. On the wonderfully named A Bowl And A Pudding, there are two vocal tracks running out of phase with each other. Even on the less experimental tracks, the record has a slightly anxious vibe – on the playlisted Levee, Jeff Tweedy sings “I love to take my meds, like my doctor said/But I worry if I shouldn’t instead”. Throughout the song, Le Bon has Nels Cline’s slide and Pat Sansone’s picked guitar parts twisting and turning around each other, adding to the unsettling feel. This unashamed fanboy thinks it’s brilliant but listen to the album and decide for yourself. [Also, here’s the story of the beautiful cover art.]

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Dear Insecurity (featuring Brandi Carlile) – Brandy Clark (2023)

I wrote about Brandy Clark’s stellar set at Black Deer Festival in WIS 23Jun23 and she has become one of my songwriter discoveries of the year. There is something about hearing music played live that connects songs with your soul and I playlisted her song Stripes in June specifically due to its razor-sharp, witty lyric. I also provided several other examples of her clever, crowd-pleasing writing in my piece, noting her many years of honing her craft as a Music Row writer in Nashville. Although I referenced this track from her self-titled fourth album released this year, it was only in the weeks after the festival that I got to really hear the full beauty of it. Brandi Carlile’s production is magnificent and her harmonies on the chorus are spine-tingling, but once again it’s the words that hit home. In what amounts to a conversation with her self-doubt, the insecurities that haunt us all are addressed by Clark’s incisive verse lyrics. The chorus then goes on to seek a way to get along with our self-doubt by deploying a little more self-kindness. While that might sound like a hopelessly naive and optimistic view, when cradled in such a gorgeous melody, it might just help some troubled people see a way through. Let’s hope so.

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Nothing Left To Lose – Everything But The Girl (2023)

As I noted back in WIS 17Mar23, I’ve been a fan of Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn since their early Cherry Red days as solo artists and throughout their various musical bends and twists as Everything But The Girl. I hung on even when the drum and bass remixes replaced their jazz/folk/pop sensibilities with that Todd Terry version of Missing in 1994. So, when they re-appeared from nowhere this year with Fuse, their first LP for 24 years, it was a delight to hear them making music together again. Having playlisted the lovely, but more subdued, Run A Red Light back in March, I’m going to plump for the tight groove of Nothing Left To Lose for this end of year special. Watt’s masterly drum programming is as clean as a whistle and that squelching synth bass line makes it a wonderful listen. But it’s Thorn’s vocal that really catches your ear. Now reflecting her years of experience, her voice has a new-found depth and resonance and is right in the middle of the mix. As the song moves to its finish, the way she sings the “Kiss me while the world decays/Kiss me while the music plays” refrain is just so powerful. There is also a haunting piano and vocal version from their BBC Maida Vale Session which is well worth a listen too.

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Weird Goodbyes (featuring Bon Iver) – The National (2023)

This one is a bit of a cheat in terms of the tracks of 2023 theme as it was actually released as a stand-alone single towards the end of 2022. However, when The National surprised everyone with their second album of the year by releasing Laugh Track in September, a few months after The First Two Pages Of Frankenstein, they decided to include this song. Built around a “mis-used drum machine beat”, it has strings from the London Contemporary Orchestra and a really distinctive harmony vocal on the chorus by Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, a long-time collaborator with the band. Songwriter Matt Berringer has said Weird Goodbyes is about someone trying to let go of the past and move on, but being quickly overwhelmed by second thoughts. As one of his first lyrics after a period of writer’s block, it paints the picture of a father leaving his family and the imagery comes thick and fast: “Names on the doorframes, inches and ages/Handprints in concrete, at the softest stages”. I am well aware they are a band who split opinions and I’m pretty sure that those who find them unbearable miserabilists will not be won over by this song. But it takes all sorts…   

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Kicking Up A Fuss – BC Camplight (2023)

After hearing about this band for a while – Mark Riley on 6Music is a big fan – 2023 was the year that I finally picked up on BC Camplight. Essentially the band is American singer songwriter Brian Christinzio, who lives and works in Manchester. Last Rotation Of Earth is his sixth album, released on the Bella Union label in May 2023 and written after the break-up of a long term relationship. An idiosyncratic musician, his lyrics also borrow from his struggles with depression and alcohol but with a great sense of humour: “Couldn’t you have done this three weeks ago/Before I spent a million pounds on your air fryer?” His musical style is wide-ranging covering art-rock, romantic balladry, epic choruses and weird ambient, often all in the same song. I had toyed with listing the melodic title song but have gone for what is probably the most accessible track on the album which he performed live this year on Later… As you will hear, Kicking Up A Fuss has a decidedly 80s groove about it, with those bouncing synths and gated drums. It seems to be located in a hotel where the narrator is calling reception and sharing his heartbreak and pain: “I’m forty-three what’s the point?/I’m watching Dickinsons Real Deal in a flea-bag joint”. It’s an odd but highly engaging album, well worth a listen.

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Garlands – The Bathers (2023)

Regular readers will possibly recall I wrote a piece on The Bathers after being lucky enough to see them bring the curtain down on the Woodside Hotel as a music venue back in September of this year. I noted that one of the set highlights that evening was a track called Locomotion Is Easy from their forthcoming and much anticipated new record Sirenesque. Their first new music for over two decades, it was released in October on the Last Night From Glasgow label to great acclaim, particularly in Scotland where Chris Thomson’s band are much loved. It’s a sweeping, majestic record full of romantic, nostalgic tunes delivered in Thomson’s distinctive and delicate growl – described in the 9/10 Uncut magazine review as “like Tom Waits driving a hearse into the cloudy depths of The Blue Nile”. The strings of the Scottish Sessions Orchestra are all over the album, especially on the other new track played that night in the Woodside and playlisted here. Driven by gentle brushed drums, Garlands drips with melody and angelic backing vocals. And, as Thomson ends with: “I kiss you once, I kiss you twice/So full of love, so full of life/Hand in hand, side by side”, there isn’t a dry eye in the house. Gorgeous.

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Last Word

I don’t really trust the algorithm that drives Spotify to group music together. However, when I looked at the ten tracks which the software recommended for adding to this week’s playlist, I saw that half of them came from a Nick Drake covers album. I think that tells you all you need to know about the tone of this selection and I would suggest it is not the playlist for your Hogmanay hoolie!

Whatever you are doing over the bells this weekend – out cutting the rug or at home lying on it – I hope that 2024 brings you and yours more of the good stuff and less of the bad stuff. Let’s hope we can all have a happy and peaceful New Year.

Back to normal service this week with all six tracks dropping into the hallowed halls of the Master Playlist, which is set up and ready to help you battle through the dark days of January.     

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AR