Today was one of farewells to two lovely people whose days at the Factory come to an end with the last of 2005.
For BJ, the deeply musical friend, first-rate news editor and writer whose wise and sometimes very funny insights win him many a word here, "there are no goodbyes, it's just au revoir."
I plan to make it so. BJ is no man to retire without working harder than ever and he can make time now to embark on an Open University course in musicology. A look at his course several months ago was good news. How the walls are coming down in scholarship! Part of BJ's demanding course -- from that quick glance -- connects what's happened in the classical world he knows so well to those of the heroines of this site.
Leaving too is Liane, a music-lover who's had not a mention on log or blog, though her quiet, accomplished and harmonious presence has been a pleasure at AFP for some while. 'The Power of Goodbye' is among my favourite songs on Madonna's 'Ray of Light'. Tonight I discovered how Natalie Imbruglia found 'Goodbye' hard on 'White Lilies Island' (2000), an album that went straight on to the hi-fi once I was home and had already paid Natalie a long visit on the iPod.
 She has three albums on the "voices of women" iPod. Two remain for me virtually unknown territory, including 'Counting Down the Days', released in April. A fine bone structure and other visible aspects of Imbruglia's natural good fortune are such it's surprisingly hard to find pictures of this "pop star" as a musician performing songs she frequently writes herself instead of the object of people's fantasies. This one of the singer was taken in England some time during the year.
What a contrast she made to Lisa Germano (home), whose 'Lullaby for Liquid Pig' (2003) has been among the delights of a fortnight of discoveries with absolutely no time for entries about any of them.
 "Lullaby For Liquid Pig has a Scandinavian starkness that lays Lisa's troubled soul bare. These occasionally dissonant, but often simply lovely songs, ask the listener to befriend her during her dark days. Real rhapsodies in blue."
That's so well put by Don Blandford at Amazon UK, I must largely leave her there for now, with a plan swiftly to get to know Germano far better. It's been very cold of late and Lisa's gentle voice and use of electronic effects apart from a piano and an acoustic guitar are ideal listening for stressful grey days.
This is a concept album where more than words link one track to others and it's as melancholy as anybody could ask of a dark invitation to chill out so deep inside yourself you can come out of it feeling as relaxed as you might after a good hour of yoga! Lisa takes a different approach to such an uplift from the kind of sadness that pervades 'White Lilies Island', where the chart-making hit songs are grouped on the first part of the album.
These are worth listening to again once you've experienced the rest of it since even when upbeat, Imbruglia is subversive with pop mannerisms, choral overdubs and a costly choice of orchestration to convey life's sad sides with more subtlety than may be evident if you hear her with half an ear. It takes considerable talent and strength to be so intimate and stay natural when you're so much in the public eye some people will Photoshop you into what they want you to be when they'd do better to be grateful for who you already are.
You'd believe 2005 has really been Natalie's year, given the number of words it seems others have written about her first couple of albums in recent months, as if some of her fans are reconsidering a career that began in soap opera, made her a sought-after glamour girl and pop star and now realise how much she's had to say all along.
Wring out the old, let's sing in the new
It's been a remarkable year for me. I end it with mention of a couple of albums that have little in common but their melancholy, the kind that makes for engaging and heart-lifting music when you're down, but plan at midnight to be elsewhere celebrating what I've already said has been one of the best and unforgettable years of my life.
The past couple of weeks have seen my attention almost entirely focussed when not working, as I shall be tomorrow like over the Christmas weekend, on friends close at hand and on family when I can. More music than ever has been a part of my days while several of my nights -- I dare write it now they're over and it seems my day job's still very much there in spite of the phenomenal amount of coffee drunk to be alert on it -- have been sleepless and consecutively so.
Next Wednesday, however, sees the start of another of what I'm now always going to call "my music weeks". They'll be at least a monthly feature of 2006, I hope. I've been asked this December to make a number of decisions and chose to add one or two of my own.
The lack of sleep has rarely been symptomatic of worries. On the contrary, once I can slow down again after having much to do, it will be with two jobs and the time for them both. One at AFP and the other, in my spare time, here among scores of sirens.
This is what I've wanted for months, but I'm greedy! I wanted plenty of time away from computers as well, to spend with people, the better among other things to do a good job of writing about musicians. Well, it's been exhausting to plan, but it's all fallen into place and that's a very upbeat note on which to say "goodbye" to a way of life that entailed constant juggling.
What I've plotted suits everyone, it works, it's harmonious and with luck, by the end of the winter, entries here will be less sporadic but the challenge is daunting! A batch of CDs that proved to be the last order of this year has been arriving at odd intervals since some were hard to find, though I suspect they shouldn't be.
Daunting maybe, but it's exciting. When somebody asked me to count how many women I can choose from for music entries, I came almost to wish they hadn't. No longer scores, it's at least a couple of hundred. After that, I stopped counting. This led to two more questions, "Don't you get bored listening almost exclusively to women?"
Well, that's not quite true, but still the answer is: "Definitely not."
The next one was: "How do you choose who comes next?"
The answer to that is both irritating and in part a secret: "I don't. I find they tend to choose themselves."
One friend said her main resolution for next year is the same as before. "I'd like to less and do it better". That sounds wise. BJ was inscrutable when asked for more details of his coming music studies.
"I don't know yet. I want it to be a surprise."
I'll lift a glass to that too.
11:27:05 PM link 
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