Mondo Bizarre Magazine Concerts of the Year, Raquel Pinheiro, Records of the Year

Best of 2024

My best of 2024 are records, concerts, a book and an exhibition that filled my soul, touched me, or left a strong impression. Art forms that early this year still resonate, and remain close to my heart.

In late April 2024 I wrote an essay with Deep Emotions, a single from Good Grief, Bernard Butler third solo album and his first in 25 years as starting point. It was my second essay for Mondo. Along with, earlier in 2024, the listening parties of Rafael Toral’s Spectral Evolution it was the beginning of marvels, emotional perils and tribulations, and new paths.

The albums by Rafael and Bernard are healing records. Basalto merges melancholia, drama, romanticism. Vini Reilly is a Record Store Day re-issue of the 1989 album by Durutti Column. If there is a musician, composer, guitarist that has been with me since I’m a kid and has an influence how I see, approach, the electric guitar, Vini Reilly is him. I become aware of Ned Swarbrick when Bernard made a shout-out for support acts, and I liked Ned’s music. His ep has been a constant since.

As the Universe would have it, in 2024 Bernard played in Portugal for the first time, solo or otherwise. It was an amazing concert. 2024 was also the year of Old Jerusalem’s last concert. Old Jerusalem and Francisco Silva, the man behind it, have been part of Mondo’s favourites for decades. Francisco also begun being part of mine, in a different capacity, in 2022 when we wrote our first song together. Old Jerusalem last concert was intimate, poignant, a gathering of friends.

Records:
Bernard Butler – Good Grief (355 Recordings)
Rafael Toral – Spectral Evolution (Moikai/Drag City Records)
Basalto – Blunt Knives (self-release)
The Durutti Column – Vini Reilly (rsd2024)
Ned Swarbrick – Michelangelo EP (self-release)

Concerts:
Bernard Butler – Casa da Música, Porto
Orquestra Barroca Casa da Música & Coro Casa da Música performing Messiah by Handel – Casa da Música, Porto
Basalto – Passos Manuel, Porto
Bill Mackay – Rivoli, Porto
Sleaford Mods – Casa da Música, Porto
Old Jerusalem – Socorro, Porto
Tindersticks – Casa da Música, Porto

Book:
Miranda July – All Fours (Riverhead Books)

Exhibition:
Cláudia Clemente – Plastic Bitch, Mira Fórum, Porto

Mondo Bizarre Magazine Middle of the Week Song

Butler, Black & Grant – Bring An End

Good morning with our Middle of the Week Song – Bring An End by Butler, Blake & Grant. These days, where Bernard (Butler) gets involved emotions I’m not used to pour out, and feel within, of me. In Bring An End is Norman Blake’s beautiful voice, and the lyrics, that bring me the most chills. The expressive guitars have a part in it too. Along with James and Bernard voices.

I like that Bernard, Norman and James are writing beautiful love and redemption songs. Bring An End music comes from fragments Norman had, the lyrics from  James’ notebooks.

The gorgeous video features Scottish landscapes and St. Margaret’s Braemar, a church in Braemar, Scotland, turned arts venue.

Maybe there is a new essay from me on the way…

Butler Blake & Grant
Tracklist:
Side One
Bring An End (Norman Blake)
One And One Is Two (James Grant)
The 90s (Bernard Butler)
Down By The Sea (Norman Blake)
The Old Mortality (Bernard Butler)

Side Two
Girl With A Little Black Number (James Grant)
Writing’s On The Wall (Norman Blake)
Rosus Posus (Instrumental)
Seemed She Always Knew (James Grant)
There’s Always Something You Can Change (Bernard Butler)

Butler Blake & Grant debut album was
home recorded in Norman Blake’s cottage loving room, mixed in London by Bernard Butler, and mastered by George Shilling. The album is out March 28th on 355 Recordings.

Mondo Bizarre Magazine Middle of the Week Song, Reviews

Bernard Butler – Camber Sands

Good morning with our Middle of the Week song – Camber Sands by Bernard Butler. Camber Sands is the opening song from

Good Grief is Bernard Butler third solo album and his first in 25 years. Have listened to the song live on assorted youtube recordings I was curious to hear how the album version sounded like. There are shades of Bowie, snippets of lost dancehalls mood, murmurs of a land between countryside and the intangible real.

The video takes me back to an array of memories. Road trips with my dad. Going up and down my country distributing print Mondo or, years before, as a road manager finding myself in numerous small, unknown places.The lyrics “back to 83” when the possibilities were endless. The music to a certain house, by the sea, with its garden, pine tress, endless joy. And another house, close by, in pastels colours, hidden behind walls among an amazing garden.

For me, the song also conveys melancholia of childhood memories, of love found, and lost and found. Songs become ours. Each of us will put their own experiences, feelings, emotions to them. Making someone who hardly cries, me, shed tears is a gesture. Hats of to you, Bernard. Have a nice day everyone.

[Good Grief is out on 355 Recordings 31st May]