It’s a place, Sly Granny is. More than one too as I found my ignorant assumption torn to shreds that the establishment near our home is unique. It’s a multi-location restaurant + bar that hosted a music themed evening celebrating (belated but hey! a worthy celebration nevertheless) World Music Day with vinyl spins, popups, live performances, and the inevitable food and drink on the blessed Sunday of June 25th, 2023. My own curiosity and the persistence of India Record Co’s owner got over my reluctance to be in even a dim spotlight. It was quite a simple thing to do too; to make a vinyl song list, carry the records, and play them. A 45-minute spin cycle. I’ve been doing informal listening sessions at home with a few close friends for years. This was just a shortened, more restrictive version but played in public, which as I have already indicated makes me uncomfortable. So I made what I believed to be the smart play. I requested the first slot when hopefully not too many people would be around and invited a few of my friends so there would be a familiar four or five faces outnumbering the one or two unknowns. Heh! Granny doesn’t hold monopoly over slyness 😏

For all my reluctance though, I thoroughly enjoyed putting together this list. I had wanted to do one with unusual cover versions but although I had sufficient songs and more for that, they were spread across media with not enough on vinyl. So I threw set theme out and settled for diversity. I dropped a lot of the experimental pieces that I had thought of initially because I’m a nice guy (very deep down) but mainly because I didn’t want to get mauled by the aforementioned unknown minority. In the end I think the list covered a good range of genre, tempo, timeframes, familiars, and the fairly obscure. The greatest fun, as is often the case with playlists in my opinion, was in sequencing and trying to get it to flow. With a list like this it’s not very easy. So, lots of fun! The sequencing made me drop some songs from the set that I started with and replace them with others that fitted in nicely. That there were only a couple of replacements meant that the starter list was quite sound. Of course, it’s just a matter of opinion. Streaming platforms helped. I could quickly set up the list and move the order till I got it the way it sounded good to me. As much as possible I use Tidal to stream because it pays more per stream to artists than most, or perhaps all, others and the sound quality is quite good. My next alternative is Apple Music, again for the same reasons of artist financial benefit and sound quality. I do understand those are personal choices for people to make and I have often shared stream links of other platforms with people who use those. I have shared the links to my playlist on Tidal, Apple Music, and Spotify at the end of this post if you’d like to give it a listen. Oh! The sweet irony of a vinyl playlist on streaming platforms 😂

Tanita Tikaram – Good Tradition: I’d written about this exceptional songwriter and unusual voice earlier. I did consider playing the brilliant “Twist In My Sobriety” but chose to go with the upbeat pop of “Good Tradition” to start things off.

Angel Olsen – Lark: She’s well-named I think. Listening to her on this song as her voice flows from a pensive quiet to a rousing high and then back again makes for a hair-on-end experience. The album ‘All Mirrors’ that it is the first song of is one of the finest pop records I’ve heard.

The Who – Baba O’Riley: The starting of this song is one of the most intriguing ones in mainstream rock music. Even though the rest of it doesn’t sustain that unusual note, it is very moving and has that visceral power that exemplifies The Who’s music. And then that gorgeous ending with the violin as centrepiece!

Sonar with David Torn – Partitions: The only reason I haven’t even drafted a post yet on Sonar’s music is that I have trouble describing at length what I feel when I listen to it. I’ll take a short stab at it though. Emotive, even without a human voice; experimental, yet accessible; complex while remaining relatable; dark but uplifting. Exceptional! Borderline genius, but only because I find it hard to ascribe ‘genius’ to anything.

Gojira – Amazonia: There’s no way that I wouldn’t have metal on this list. The fact that they fiercely stand up for making the world around them better and that I’ve never heard a single bad album from Gojira make the band and this particular song an easy and obvious choice.

Saluki – Come Down: The band that got me started on my vinyl trip (I have very strong contrarian thoughts on this medium but more of that at a different time)! This little-known Norwegian band’s eponymous debut had been remastered and released again when I heard it at the Big Dipper store in Oslo a five-minute walk from the AirBnB I was staying in after my Arctic gallivanting in 2019. I was flabbergasted by the quality and the diverseness on that one album. This song is the opener with its heady cocktail of funk, jazz, rock, and a dash of psychedelia.

Riz Ahmed – Can I Live: Riz Ahmed’s album ‘The Long Goodbye’ showcases the man’s intelligence and intensity. From impassioned monologue to RnB to rousing rap, he powers through with effortless ease.

Childish Gambino – Boogeyman: What can I say about this guy that has already not been said? Borderline genius (another)! ‘Awaken, My Love’ is an album that takes the finest RnB (no, he’s not rapping in this album) and makes it even better while moving it forward. A strong foundation and a body with no end of delightful quirks!

Big Audio Dynamite – Bad: Mick Jones was at the heart of The Clash being more than just a purveyor of monotonous punk rock. Big Audio Dynamite, formed after he was out of The Clash, establishes that emphatically with its irreverent, weird, experimental yet thoroughly enjoyable music and sharp lyrics, especially on the debut album ‘This is…’! Not punk musically, but in its taking the mickey out of norms, it’s all-out punk in attitude. I used to have a cassette of it, a well-worn one that gave up after much use. I couldn’t find a CD or vinyl of it for a long time till the record was pressed again quite recently.

Peter Gabriel – The Feeling Begins: ‘Passion’ is one of the greatest film soundtracks ever made. Gabriel’s deep interest in music from around the world finds a home (apart from his Real World record label) in the music here made for Martin Scorsese’s ‘The Last Temptation Of Christ’. Truly monumental, moving, and inspirational music made way back in 1988 (the album was released later in 1989) that involved so many musicians that the man sought out and collaborated with (there’s a companion album called ‘Passion: Sources’ that features the music of each of these musicians). The by-now familiar (maybe even done to death) plaintive ‘mystical’ part played on the Armenian Duduk that you hear here has inspired music in so many soundtracks since then from Indian film scores to that of movies like ‘Gladiator’.

Plus 1 Track:

Fern – Simulacrum: Drummer and singer Paul Seidel shows a different facet of his musical sensibility on the album ‘Intersubjective’ from his project, Fern. Moody, very seductive, mellower music compared to what he does with Nightmarer and The Ocean. One of the best albums that I’ve heard this year, and that’s saying a lot!

The Playlist:

Tidal: https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/69843876-a92c-4304-b292-e7e62fdee67b

Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/in/playlist/sly-granny-plays-25-06-2023/pl.u-KVXBk1JuZg25Mr

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0iWJaaqBMQ1ZHxwMj0apk7?si=54b5138ca7344932