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Showing posts from November, 2015

James Varda: Chance And Time - One Year On

On his ABC (Australia) radio show The Inside Sleeve last week, Paul Gough introduced a couple of tracks from Chance And Time, the last album from James Varda who died in June this year. He introduced the section with a few words about how he came to know Varda's music in the late 80s through the John Leckie-produced LP, Hunger . He spoke about the strength of the songwriting and how the record had stayed with him over the years. He played Beside The Sea , the haunting penultimate track on Chance And Time , and Only Love , which, in a sense is the centrepiece, closing the Chance section of the album. For me -   and I've listened to the album many times - there was something different about hearing the songs on a radio programme broadcast from thousands of miles away. It lacked the static and hiss of an old time analogue radio show, but felt no less distant.   It's a year since Chance And Time was released and nearly five months since James died. He would, I'm su