John on his favourite 2004 albums
Source unknown…help?
“The Bjork album, Medulla, really astound sme: the things she is doing with vocals – there’s never been anything like it on a pop record. She’s doing whole songs that have so much in common with 12 tone Syrian music and very little in common with anything else in the rock music section. Not only that but the way she recorded – having all the people in the same room atthe same time – that’s just not the way people make records. She’s a real thinker, and a conceptualist, and obviously it goes without saying that the quality of her voice is remarkable. I am a student of harmonies: I focus on the backing vocals all the time and everything on the record ia a voice. Some of the stuff on this album is just from outer space.
“The other thing will irritate you, because it’s not out til next year, but the next MARS VOLTA record, Frances The Mute, is amazing. It has the shortest song they’ve ever done – a three and a half minute song – and it has a 32 minute song. That 32 minute song is just a thing of so much vision. Omar just had the whole album in his head. It’s like an 80 minute album and it goes through all kinds of changes, lots of surprises. I am just blown away that I know someone who made an album like this.”
