Tracks - page 31

Poor old George Lazenby never gets the plaudits he deserves for his one-film Bond residence. In turn, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is also often overlooked in favour of the campier or grittier films in...

I think we can probably agree that composer John Barry’s Japanese infusion for the soundtrack of You Only Live Twice was a tad more convincing than Sean Connery’s. Roger Moore cops a lot of flak...

After Les Fleur yesterday, today’s track features another great Charles Stepney arrangement and if Les Fleur is springtime-in-bloom exciting, then California Soul is summer-in-a-can joyful - a perfect go-to track when everything’s...

Les Fleur or Les Fleurs? Either way, it must surely be impossible to be uncheered by a spring classic sung, as you do, from the perspective of a flower.

One of the most beautiful songs from an album that completely blew me away the first time I listened to it. And that’s no mean feat considering I was standing at a listening post in...

Written during the Out of Time recording sessions, but not completed until later, Nightswimming was, for a long time, a simple, circular piano pattern that Mike Mills established gradually. Holding the track back from Out...

In their commentary on the DVD of The Seldom Seen Kid Live at Abbey Road, Elbow’s Guy Garvey introduces The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver:

When Richard Hewson’s string arrangements for Nick Drake’s debut album Five Leaves Left came in, there was widespread disappointment at Island Records: too mainstream was the verdict. “I have this friend”, said Nick, “he’d be...

Joanna Newsom may be something of an acquired taste; her songs and albums may be long and meandering. There is, however, something definitely worth savouring about a talented musician going about her business with such...

For years I listened to this song without properly appreciating how amazing the string arrangement is at the start of Everybody's Talkin': a stupendously beautiful long note that plays through the verse, and into the...

'With Red Eyes Adam Granduciel once more picks up the baton passed on by songs from **Slave Ambient** like Brothers, Baby Missiles, and Come to the City and just heads on down the highway with...

Something of a curiosity, this: as beautiful as the stringy version of Landed is, this is not a song that ever needed a string section bursting through and demanding to be heard. Take that away,...

Reading what a few serious critics have to say about the matter, it seems that live albums are viewed with no little weariness and great cynicism. Perhaps they've been suffered one too many by-the-numbers- run-throughs...

After the success of 2012’s Tramp, expectations are pretty high for Sharon Van Etten’s next album; if Taking Chances is anything to go by, it might be safe to start assuming those expectations will be...

Voices and strings don’t always need to combine angelically. Scowling up at McAlmont and Montgomery is Luke Haines, his voice, general demeanour and attitude a permanent scar on the rosy-cheeked face of britpop.

Yes is a song in which the lead vocal becomes almost one with the orchestral accompaniment. On this occasion it's the extraordinary sound of David McAlmont, former Thieves lead singer but heard here during his...

Tranquilizer is a song that is given life by its string arrangement: it's a classic example of raising the chorus with strings. Sometimes this can come off a bit clichéd, but here they are a...

The Verve were the Britpop kings of strings, and History was just the first in a long line of string-laden hits that the band would achieve in between their various breakups. By the time of...

Wake Up Boo! wasn’t the only, or indeed first, Boo Radleys song to find the band giving themselves a name-check. In 1992 they put their name to a whole EP, which I found pretty funny...

Consider this a shoegazing playlist bonus: a London band bringing to life the glorious moment when Swervedriver, Dinosaur Jr, My Bloody Valentine, Teenage Fanclub went on a massive pub crawl together and wound up agreeing...