Vole's Occasionally Festive nearly Fifty

Well here I am in the office alone, because the student who asked for a tutorial has stood me up, and all of my colleagues are curled up in their nests or out digging up acorns.

It's been an odd week. On Tuesday I had to represent someone at a disciplinary hearing, which turned into a version of one of the cheaper courtroom dramas on ITV3. Within 5 minutes of walking in I found myself reading out sections of the procedure to the chair and the HR lackey, neither of whom had apparently familiarised themselves with their own regulations. Two minutes after that I was heard to say 'don't answer that' and we walked out in the most corduroy version of a mic drop ever seen. Yesterday was a slightly happier encounter: finishing the year by examining a Creative Writing PhD thesis. These consist of a lengthy original work, a critical section on the literary context and a theorised self-evaluation. While we gave the candidate a good grilling over his theoretical contextualisation, the external and I were deeply moved by the novella, a polyphonic, destabilised retelling told entirely in Black Country dialect of the locally infamous and unexplained murder of 'Bella', an anonymous woman whose skeleton was found stuffed into a wych-elm in 1943. The cliché of PhD vivas is that they should be enjoyable conversations between the only three or four people who'll ever read your work with such close attention, but I genuinely think that was the case yesterday. The external examiner was Luke Kennard, a really talented poet and novelist in his own right, and it was a privilege to listen to two authors discuss the creative process with a keen critical eye. My contribution was largely centred on punctuation, but every little helps.

So rather than tackle any of the mountains of work I still have to do, I thought I'd look back on the various records I've bought and in most cases enjoyed this year. Despite my young GTA dividing my musical tastes into 'boring background music' (the classical stuff) and 'not as good as Ariana Grande' (inc. Kate Bush, Portishead and Massive Attack) I think it's been quite a good year. So in reverse order of purchase:

1. Suede, The Blue Hour. I bought this on vinyl, so marks are knocked off for not providing a download version for mobile/office listening. It's beautiful, and reflective: Suede have aged gracefully and thoughtfully, rather than trying to reclaim their youth.
2. Audiobooks, Now (In a Minute): I've always loved David Wrench's work, from Nid Madagascar to the bilingual (Welsh) folk-goth of Blow Winds Blow to the horny pop of The Atomic World of Tomorrow and all the collaborations he's been involved in.





Audiobooks is the result of his move to London and a chance meeting with a young art student called Evangeline Ling. It's another late flowering - having made a career mostly from producing other people's records, Wrench records albums at odd intervals seemingly for fun rather than profit, but this one really deserves to be a hit. It's funny - as the Welsh in-joke of the title promises - but it's also catchy and funky dance music.
3. Per Norgard, Symphonies 3 and 7. I'd missed Norgard's existence until this year, when a review in the Guardian mentioned the 3rd symphony as a good choral piece. They were right - it's contemporary classical that uses interesting rhythmic patterns to produce something that's uncanny without being unbearably abstract.
4. Julian Anderson, Book of Hours - Choral Music: some of this is beautiful without being memorable, but I really fell for the 'Four American Choruses', which push choral music beyond the familiar sounds and structures you get on Classic FM or daytime Radio 3.



5. Andrew Kirkman and the Binchois Consort, The Lily and the Rose. I much prefer medieval music to the Baroque and Classical period - early music can be a bit rougher and earthier, until it was captured by the church and princes and prettified. This CD is mostly of religious music, but it's full of life, and doesn't sound like the aural equivalent of the Sealed Knot society.
6. Philip Glass, Hydrogen Jukebox. I'm still not entirely convinced that minimalist/post-minimalist opera can or should be a thing, but 'Wichita Vortex Sutra' has never been far from my turntable, so I bought this patchy but intriguing opera to hear what happens when Ginsberg and Glass get together. It's still growing on me, but I am starting to love it. I played 'Wichita…' to my students this year. I can't say they were immediately converted to Beat poetry and minimalism but neither did they race for the exit.



7. The Breath, Let The Cards Fall. Not as rough as the folk I really love (think Unthanks) but this is a superb example of modern Anglo-Irish sort-of folk music with not a hint of nostalgia.
8. Chris Isaak, 'Wicked Game'. It was stuck in my head and I've never owned a copy. It's good!
9. Tori Amos, Boys for Pele. I'm literally two decades late, as this is the 20th Anniversary re-release. I'd only heard the club remix of 'Professional Widow', so not bothered with her stuff. Turns out she's like Joni Mitchell, Kate Bush, Joanna Newsome and PJ Harvey, i.e a musical polymath, a poetic turn of phrase and a singular vision. A bit of a revelation to me.
10. The Master Musicians of Dyffryn Moor, Cerddoriaeth Ddefodol Gogledd Sir Benfro (Ritual Music of North Pembrokeshire). Tipped off by a friend who heard Huw Stephens play some of this on 6Music, I bought it, attracted by its witty song titles, to discover that it's an album of beautiful twisted folk-pop instrumentals. Even more pleasing was the discovery that one of the musicians is Owen Martell, the brilliant Welsh-language novelist, critic and translator I invited to the university a year or two ago.



11. Alison Statton and Spike, Bimini Twist. Statton was the singer in Young Marble Giants, who recorded one amazing album in the 80s then split up: this is a lovely though inessential record.
12. Pulp, It, Separations and Freaks. I'd forgotten how much I loved pre-fame Pulp until I bought electronic copies of these albums to horrify my office colleagues. 'My Legendary Girlfriend' and 'This House is Condemned' will astonish you.





13. The Nightingales, Perish the Thought. Disclosure: I'm friends with most of the band and quite a few of their ex-members too. That aside, they get better and better. This one's a compulsive rush of social commentary over the top of their most grumpily catchy tunes ever.
14. Norma Waterson and Liza Carthy, Anchor: the best folk musicians of their generations get together and wipe the floor with everyone.
15. Susanna, Go Dig My Grave: Scandinavian, hushed goth-ish chamber pop. Like being told a particularly good ghost story during a power cut - and it's a covers album of very unexpected songs.
16. Dubh Chapter, Silence, Cunning and Exile. For years I've had a solitary battered 7" of their single 'Happy is the Bride'. On a whim I got hold of the LP and it's lovely - pre-Britpop goth-tinged guitar pop. They should have made it big.
17. Low, Double Negative. A Mormon married couple plus a bassist who turn out albums featuring close-harmony rock about spiritual torment every couple of years: what's not to love? Seriously, I've loved Low since the mid-90s and while they build on their sound every time in surprising ways, they just get better and better. See them whenever you get a chance: they're mesmeric live. Another album of the year.
18. Daniel Bachman, The Morning Star. Not sure how to categorise this, but it's got guitars and folk tunings and found sounds. Like a particularly unstructured dream. Wonderful.
19. Chvrches, Love is Dead. I thought I was hip when I bought their last album, but the kids laughed at me. This follow-up is less immediate but it's cool and compulsive Scottish synth-pop.
20. Gruff Rhys, Babelsberg. Like Euros Childs's records, I'll get everything Rhys does. Not everything is a success, but all his records are interesting. I'm filing this one under fascinating: orchestral pop with a scathing view of contemporary America.
21. Stuart Staples, Arrhythmia. Staples is the lead singer of another of my enduring favourites, Tindersticks. This is a more personal record, but it hasn't made such an impression on me yet.
22. Mazzy Star, Still. An unexpected comeback in EP form. I expected hushed beauty and ethereality. I got it.
23. Joan as Police Woman, Damned Devotion. I always think of her and Regina Spektor as working in similar ways: classically-influenced, mistresses of the distorted torch song, should be more well-known.
24. The Nightingales with Vic Godard, 'Commercial Suicide Man'. A fun one-off collaboration.
25. Adwaith, 'Femme' (hilariously sarcastic attack on how teenage girls are kept down), 'Pwysau', 'Fel i Fod', 'Haul' - four singles from the future of Welsh-language indie.
26. Steve Reich, Pulse/Quartet. I'm trying to collect everything Reich has written. Pulse is new, and actually doesn't add much to his canon, but the Colin Currie Group do a great job.
27. Cavern of Anti-Matter, Hormone Lemonade: post-Stereolab warm electro dance genius. I may be alone on this one.
28. Joni Mitchell, For The Roses and Song to a Seagull: obviously everything JM did before about 1983 is amazing. I already knew this because I have these on vinyl, but I wanted download versions for those times when I'm dragged away from my record player. 
29. Kate Whitley, I Am, I Say. I bought this because I love viola concertos. Very glad I did: clearly a rising star in the classical world.
30. Paul Giger, Ignis - another contemporary-ish classical composer bought on the strength of 'Organum' popping up on Radio 3. Immersive.
31. Winchester College Quiristers, Three Wings. This is great: Perry is a contemporary composer who took a load of 14th-century plainchant and added washes of electronica. It could have been Enigma. It isn't.
32. Yo La Tengo, There's a Riot Going On. Only a polite one though. I love YLT very much: slacker harmonies and the occasional wig-out. This time with pop hooks! Saw them live in the spring and had a great time.
33. Breeders, All Nerve. Yes they're still going, and yes they're still providing good time guitar pop.
34. Various, Trans Limen ad Lumen. Lovely choral album, mostly bought for Giger's Tenebrae.
35. Levellers, Levellers and Levelling the Land. Saw them live once. Hated them. Listened to them as an undergrad: loved them. Didn't pay them any attention for another 20 years (or so) until I started teaching texts loosely based around the 1988 Summer of Love and the 1985 Battle of the Beanfield and decided the kids should hear the soundtrack to the last time their predecessors really freaked out the grownups. How I wish those days would return. With fewer didgeridoos this time.
36. Pauline Oliveros, The Roots of the Moment. I've been looking for the overlooked women in the minimalist/post-minimalist movement. Oliveros represents the best of 60s idealism, and her music is a magical blend of minimalism, drone and harmonica. Absolutely hypnotic.



37. John Adams, The Gospel According to the Other Mary. See previous comments about minimalist opera. Must keep trying with this one.
38. Grace Williams, Sea Sketches and Symphony No. 2: overlooked mid 20th-century Welsh composer. Lovely, but a bit conservative compared with what was going on in France and elsewhere. Just as good as her male British contemporaries. 2nd Symphony is really, really good though.
39. Simon Holt, A Table of Noises. Does what it says on the tin: quietly challenging contemporary classical percussion. A real discovery for me.
40. Powerplant, Electric Counterpoint and other pieces. Powerplant is Joby Burgess, a guy who does electronically-enhanced percussion music, sometimes on instruments he's invented: this CD includes some Steve Reich, Kraftwerk and other pieces. We saw him live at the start of the year and loved the way he made their music do something else entirely. He also did a live tape-looping piece using members of the audience that was thrilling to be part of (not that he asked me to contribute). Bah.

I've listened to a lot more music than this: these are just this year's purchases. Taken together, they show me how my tastes and interests are changing. A bit less folk than previous years, but more interesting ones. A lot more female artists and composers - partly because I've been deliberately seeking them out. Virtually all British, European or American, which isn't good. Also, almost completely white, which reflects badly on me, my ingrained cultural preferences and my sources of new music but also on the industry, particularly the classical world. I'm not going to list all the music by black people I own because it's the equivalent of 'Some of my best friends…' but I am struck by quite how exclusive this year's purchases have been. Something to think about next year, definitely.

Happy Christmas.