What I am listening to: LYR

There's probably not a more unusual album that I loved this year than An Unnatural History by LYR. 

LYR (Land Yacht Regatta) is British Poet Laureate Simon Armitage, producer Patrick Pearson and multi instrumentalist Richard Walters. I really am not familiar with Armitage though he seems like someone who is modern and accessible- a perfect kind of poet for the 21st Century. Raised on Britpop, where I heard of Armitage was the infamous 2010 Guardian interview he did with Morrissey. That particular interview seemed to be the crossing of the Rubicon for which the outlandish Mozzer seemed to pass from controversy to being blatantly racist. 

Album reviews seem to try to counter the idea that it's all that odd. John Betjeman made a “pop” album in 1974 with longtime Gerry Rafferty producer Hugh Murphy. Now, I did give some listens to Neil Gaiman's 2023 Signs of Life album which took his poetry and prose to String Quartet backing. Plus, if we are being honest, rock artists like the Fall, the Smiths, Pulp, British Sea Power and Tindersticks wed literature to modern music. But I also feel like this is the kind of album I wouldn't have picked up. I am not necessarily a fan of spoken word but somehow this works. 

 The music is compelling as is Armitage's words on top. The subject is the Natural History Museum in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England which documented local flora and fauna until it closed in the 1960s. The album imagines the area, plants and animals past and present. The band's Bandcamp lists a series of fantastic (and sometimes Fantastic) animals- elephants, rare moths, urban foxes, whales, pigeons, two headed dogs and Phoenixes.