Music Arcades: Mike Adcock: In the Case of Darkness

A lot of Music Arcades is made up of albums from 40 years ago that I discovered ten years ago. It's not very current. Sometimes — OK, not very often — I wish I could tell you about the happening new releases that I've been stroking my hairy chin to. But (a) most new releases I get from eMusic, so they don't qualify for Music Arcades, and (b) I'm dependent on the random number generator to decide the order here, so this month's new release may not crop up here for a year or two.

But here's something fresh. In the Case of Darkness was released only six weeks or so ago, I think. In fact, the Amazon listing for the CD says it's not released until next Monday, though I got my copy four weeks ago by mail order (yep, putting a cheque in the post!) from the record label. This was one of the CDs I said last month I'd bought because it was "off the grid". That was true at the time, but slightly annoying it's now available on both eMusic and Amazon. On the other hand, I wouldn't have the excuse to write this if I'd got one of those downloads.

Last time we had a Mike Adcock album on here, I mentioned that I was the first person on Last.fm to listen to any of his music. That was nearly two and a half years ago. Yesterday, before I played In the Case of Darkness on my computer, there were a total of 18 plays of Mike Adcock on Last.fm. I checked how many were mine from 2007. Yep, all 18. I can't quite figure that out. Adcock is just not that obscure or inaccessible. For instance, I heard about this album when it played on Late Junction a couple of times in June.

Come on, David, tell us about the music, and what you think of it! I have news for you. Since the improvised performances for "quickly prepared piano" of Moment of Discovery, Mike Adcock has sold out! He's dropped the improv and the unorthodox intervals between notes, he's 'fleshed out' his sound, and written the kind of melodies that are apt to be described as 'lyrical' even though there are no lyrics, ho, ho.

And it's bloody marvelous. I feel like I haven't known it long enough to be sure that it qualifies for the great accolade that is inclusion in my Top 50, but I'm already thinking of it as a kind of splicing of two albums that are already there, Corduroy Road and Union Cafe. Wistful and witty.

I wish I'd found Mike's website before. Better late than never. Also his MySpace page where you can hear three tracks from In the Case of Darkness and check the listings for Mike's gig in London last week that I only found out about just now.