SiS Guest Blogger: Rupert Lyddon (Grand National)

This week, we're introducing the SiS Guest Blogger column, where we have bands who we've featured on recent volumes of Stranded In Stereo chime in with some words on their influences, or tell us some crazy story about that time they were at a Denny's in the middle of nowhere at all hours of the morning. Kicking off this new feature is Rupert Lyddon, one half of the London duo Grand National, as he gives us some words on two of his favorite albums to ever me melted on the wax.

Joni Mitchell - Hissing of Summer Lawns
For a ton of reasons, One of the things she nails on this album where a million fail is she's freaking musical without it being muso. Her communicative intent is so strong the sheer musicality ends up just being an underpinning to her big picture. It's as clever as tits without getting in the way of the feeling of her speaking with you one on one.

For me it's between her and the Quiffed dude from salford to who's the greatest lyricist of all time. When she released the album in 1975 Rolling Stone named it as the worst album of the year, which kind of shows how alien or ahead of it's time it was. Supposedly she was hanging out with captain bob dylan at the time whilst he recorded "blood on the tracks," double rumour has it that they shared an album listening party together. Shizzer, i'm turning into a music historian farty an not answering the question dagnabbit. Look, it's prince's favorite album too. That enough? Grand National and Prince will share an album listening party next album, then we'll challenge him to basketball afterwards Charlie Murphy style. Thats enough. [Buy Here]

Jan Hammer - Black Sheep
Forget some of his late eighties Cheese and ubiquitous You tube embarrassments, (Yes we've got a fair few of those too.) He's just got this immediate feel and soundscape that says "Jans here and i'm gonna wrap the best Moog riff around your ears brain and booty." He did a bunch of great late seventies albums super ahead of the time, ground breaking etc and all of the "ahead of the curve" quotes times ten plus. So yeah, he's playing a cold arsed synth but you can feel his fingers all over your body and breath against your neck, lovely or not depending. Electronic music late seventies to early eighties is often pretty and particularly fashionable, and yes relax Jan Hammer is up there with the best of them, but he also manages to out cool them all and be a proper no shit heavy weight dork at the same time. Fantastic. His Miami Vice theme tune wasn't bad either.

And of course, Grand National's stellar new album, A Drink And A Quick Decision, is out now on Recall Records.

Download: "By The Time I Get Home There Won't Be Much Of A Place For Me" [mp3] // [Buy Here]