TOP5 – Simon Comber

Simon Comber has recently released his new EP – The Right to Talk To Strangers and he’s embarking on a tour to celebrate.

Grant Smithies named the EP CD of the Week in todays Sunday Star Times saying that the EP “continues Combers upward trajectory with incremental improvements” – Smithies was a fan, already, of Simon’s 2009 LP Endearance.

Cheese on Toast asked him to tell us (and you) his current Top 5 song’s he’s loving right now…

1 – Wyatt, Atzmon, Stephen – What a Wonderful World
I love all things Robert Wyatt-related. The effortless way he mixes jazz inflections with the folk music tendency to sing in ones own speaking voice is perfectly encapsulated in this lovely performance from the recent Wyatt/Atzmon/Stephen collaboration ‘For the Ghosts Within.’

2 – Manu Samoa fans singing at Auckland airport
I mean seriously – no matter how much you resent certain aspects of NZ’s rugby culture surely you CANNOT hate on this right??

3 – John Fahey – On the Sunny Side of the Ocean
I never go too long without getting my Fahey fix. Something about those haunting single note melodies sliding up and down the fretboard with strings eternally droning and jangling on either side is just so RIGHT. It is very hard to play anything in an open tuning without sensing this man’s shadow hovering above you.

4 – Haunted Love – Into the Night
When I heard that H.L’s new L.P was imminent I pulled their E.P “Darkness in Diamond City” out and gave it another spin. ‘Into the Night’ slays me everytime. The verse seems to slip into the chorus like a star slipping into a black hole – in reverse.

5 – Bill Callahan – Riding for the Feeling
One thing every songwriter knows they shouldn’t write about is “life on tour,” but blow me down if Callahan hasn’t done justice to the strange mix of gratitude and melancholy one feels to hit a new town, meet wonderful people, feel appreciated and validated, and leave the next morning, like some well-meaning but helpless commitment-phobe fleeing an unexpected 1 night stand, “again and again and again . . . .”