reserved reversal

Yesterday, after playing with bicycles, I was working in London and then tucked away in a hotel for the evening.

Earlier in the day I'd listened to some of the new KT Tunstall album in my car and was slightly taken aback. The album starts with a track that could easily have been on a Sheryl Crow recording and uses some similar production values too. Nothing against Sheryl, but the point with KT Tunstall was that she sounded like, well, KT Tunstall. The next track continued with a shimmered studio production and for me this hides some of the 'gaps between the sounds' that make the earlier Tunstall albums interesting. The 'eye to the telescope' sold several million, so I guess the record company know what they are doing, but I also suppose that's part of the point. Its not good if all artists get produced in a way that tends to make them bland or derivative.

I'll be in a minority on this, I'm sure, and other people have already said how 'drastic' and 'fantastic' the new album is. But then a strange thing happened...

...In my hotel, I discovered a way to listen to the album that somehow changes my initial impression.

Earlier, I'd copied the CD into iTunes and then dropped it into my iPod.

The hotel had a little plug on the clock radio (as they do nowadays) so that I could play my iPod and I casually selected 'recently added'.

The result was to listen to the same album, but with all of the tracks played in the reverse sequence (ahem on a lo-fi radio system). And you know something? It somehow sounds better! Old vinyls were often put together with care for the sequencing, but I'm not so sure nowadays. Certainly the reverse sequence sets a different initial tone and guides the listener towards some of the more heavily produced material. So when I get a few spare moments, I shall re-cut the album, in reverse track order, back to CD for my car and listen again.

So concluding, what with my PJ Harvey post a couple of days ago, I thought the PJ image from Slane 2003 and the KT 2007 album cover could do with some comparison.