Wednesday, December 13, 2006

We're all going to drown! But never mind, have a listen to Acoustic Ladyland's new CD and all will be well...

...Good grief, that was a bad one. Twelve hours of violent pitching, rolling, slamming, crunching and clanging on the way from Lerwick to Aberdeen aboard the good ship Hjaltland. It could have been a lot worse, and frankly, I expected it to be, what with all the warnings about taking care when moving about, switching off car alarms, the likelihood of 'discomfort' and the captain announcing that he didn't expect as to arrive in Aberdeen before '10 or 11'.
But the wind came around and moderated (which didn't affect the turbulent state of the sea) and we were in Castle Greyskull by 7.00 am. I slept (courtesy of the trusty Phenergan) from 7.00 pm until 9.00pm, when the movement of the ship woke me up. Then from midnight until 6.00 am.
So I'm not feeling too bad. Especially since a glorious scrambled egg breakfast at the Baker's Pantry, plus Fair Trade coffee at M&S. Where I intended to buy a pair of trousers, seeing as Primark is now beyond the pale due to paying its factory workers only 5p an hour or somesuch. However, all the M&S trousers looked as if they'd been deigned to accomoodate colostomy bags, and at Primark you can buy an entire washable suit (fits perfectly) for £26...so, err...
Anyway, the trip was made (only just) bearable by the eye-wateringly pungent sounds of Acoustic Ladyland, second only to The Hold Steady in my musical discoveries of the year. Skinny Grin is an apocalypse of an album: Swaggering, brutal urban English jazz as filtered through Hendrix and Chas'n'Dave, and a tremendous antidote to all that singer-songwritery whining I normally listen to (and love).

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