Everybody’s got some favourite albums. Music that accompanied yourself through difficult times, records that acted like a friend when there was real one around. Whether it was the sound around the times of your first kiss or the starting point of your own attempts to take a deeper look into new musical territories. We all have this record somewhere in our hearts and private collections. In this category NOTHING BUT HOPE AND PASSION lets the artist’s do the writing as they share their personal stories and feelings on their most loved record with us.
Earlier this month Multi-instrumentalist and singer BILL RYDER-JONES released his third album ‘West Kirby County Primary’. Recorded in his mum’s house in his hometown West Kirby (Merseyside), the album became NOTHING BUT HOPE AND PASSION’s ‘Album Of The Week’. RYDER-JONES who has been THE CORAL‘s guitarist from 1996 to 2008 and worked with ARCTIC MONKEYS proves to be one of the most talented and ambitious songwriters in Britain. For us he opens up about a record from Welsh band Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci he discovered 17 years ago.
Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci – ‘Gorky 5’ (1998)
Do you remember the time when you bought that record?
I don’t remember specifically when I bought it, I most likely had it passed on to me by one of the Coral boys. That’s kind of how it used to work. There’d be one copy of every great album and you’d have to wait your turn to get it. I’d already been put into Gorky’s and was hooked on Barafundle, I loved it so much that I reluctantly listened to Spanish Dance Troupe, fearing it wouldn’t be as good. It was but the same thing happened with Gorky 5. I was almost scared to listen but eventually I did and it’s easily up there with those other two records.
Was there a special trigger that initially made you buy the album?
No not really, they were still releasing records when I discovered them. A few years later they supported the Coral on tour and I heard other songs from their earlier records, that certainly made me look into the very first things they recorded.
Please explain in a few words why it is so special for you?
Well as always it’s the songs, when they touch you they touch you and it’s very hard sometimes to sum that up. With regards to what makes this album special I’d say it’s the flow, it has a feel of the sea somehow. The songs role into each other so brilliantly. It’s very easy to get lost in I find. It’s kind of seamless.
What’s your favourite song on the album and why?
So hard. Only The Sea Makes Sense is certainly up there. The melody and sentiment belong to each other and that’s so hard to do. There’s so many though. Lets get together (in our minds) features one of my favourite lines ever ‘I fell in love with you, or was it your picture’. Honestly though, I really couldn’t pick one.
Why should one listen to that record today? Anything about the album that speaks to the people today as well?
Well music is timeless. Gorky’s songs are about universal things. Love, loss etc. It can be heard and loved by anyone at any time. It doesn’t speak of a certain time, it doesn’t cash in on any current zeitgeist, it’s just real moving honest songwriting.
Any other work by the artist you can recommend? Or any other album you’d like to give some credit right here?
There honestly isn’t a bad Gorky’s album. The two I’ve mentioned above certainly and definitely worth giving ‘How I long to feel that summer’. I could without doubt have picked that as my favourite GZM album.
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