Off the record

REDISCOVER THE LOST ART OF LISTENING

Most of us now hear music all day every day — through little iPod earbuds on the Tube, yoghurt pot-sized computer speakers at work, parping over shop Tannoys and squeaking from our televisions. But how often do we really listen? Not very often, say the people who make the speakers in Abbey Road Studios.

"We need to rediscover the art of listening," says Dr John Dibb, a development engineer at high-end audio specialists Bowers & Wilkins. A pair of their flagship, 4ft-high, 800-series speak-ers, as used in the studio that brought you Sgt Pepper and Dark Side of the Moon, will set you back £13,000, so it can be reasoned that they know a thing or two about sound quality. "It's unfortunate that most people have come to think of sound as something that only exists in the background."

Dibb spoke this week at an Abbey Road "sound tasting" event — a bit like wine tasting where your ears do the imbibing. It's a useful analogy — both subjects require a vocabulary that describes the experience in a way that can sound pretentious, but makes a funny kind of sense once you get used to it.

Studio engineers call music with too much at the bass end "boomy" or "muddy", while too much treble is "brash" and "splashy". Best of all, too much sound in the mid-frequency is dubbed "chesty", "honky" and "nasal" — which sounds like a bad date I once had.

Ideally, a well-reproduced recording will have "transparency", a musical "clean window"; each instrument will be clearly defined. You're also looking for "air and ambience", to give a sense of the space in which the music was created, and "slam and attack" — a punch of bass and drums that Dibb thrillingly illustrated with a top-volume blast of Rage Against the Machine.

"Make listening an event. Get comfortable, minimise any distractions," he advises. "Most importantly, close your eyes. You won't believe how quickly your brain turns up your sensitivity to sound."

Doing this was a strange experience, even for someone who listens to music for a living. Like most people, I usually half-focus on a dozen different things while music forms my daily wallpaper. We have grown used to listening to new albums as internet streams that can only be heard through feeble computer speakers. It makes you feel sorry for bands who spend so many months tweaking their timpani sound only for their hard graft to be experienced through poor quality PC tweeters on a compressed MP3.

Of course we can't all buy speakers pricier than a family saloon — but it is remarkable how much the listening experience improves when you do simple things, like sitting an equal distance from two speakers and really concentrating on making your sense of hearing your body's primary focus.

As with wines, though, sometimes you just want to get sloshed on super-market plonk. There's nothing wrong with occasionally turning that low-end midi hi-fi up to top volume. Music is also meant to be fun.

MATES ARE FINE MATCH

Noel Gallagher and Paul Weller have done cover versions as The Smokin' Mojo Filters, appeared on stage together plenty of times and no doubt often call each other up to complain about young people nowadays. But the pair have never written a song together until Echoes Round the Sun, due to appear on Weller's ninth solo album, 22 Dreams.

"Noel came down to the studio with this loop he'd never been able to do anything with. He played the bass and the piano and then Gem [Archer, Oasis guitarist] played guitar on top. It's a top tune," Weller has revealed.

I've heard it and have to agree: Noel's bass dominates, pounding through the song in thick slabs, pausing only for a basic piano breakdown. Archer's guitar feeds back enjoyably, Bollywood-style strings add drama and the whole thing motors along at a terrific pace.

It's one of many signs that Weller is feeling rejuvenated after his Lifetime Achievement Brit last year. The new album (released 2 June) is a wide-ranging double, with 21 tracks that include trad folk on Light Nights, racing soul on A Dream Reprise, winsome balladry on Black River (which stars another big Britpop name, Graham Coxon) and One Bright Star, an oddity seemingly designed for ballroom dancing. He sounds like he's having fun, playing with his mates and experimenting a little. And why shouldn't he?

Paul Weller plays Hammersmith Apollo, 21-23 May (0870 400 0700, www.hammersmithapollo.net)

NEW ON THE NET

Still experimenting with ways of releasing their music, Radiohead are encouraging fans to buy their new single Nude from the iTunes store in five "stems" (guitar, bass, drums, strings and voice at 79p each) then make their own remix. The best can be voted for at www.radioheadremix.com.

Green Day's huge-selling last album, American Idiot, was a double, and now the punk trio have written so many songs for the follow-up they've had to release some as a different band.

The Foxboro Hot Tubs appeared online near the end of last year, with a Sixties visual aesthetic and a retro garage-rock sound. There's a free download taster at www. jingletownrecords.com and brand new song The Pedestrian has just gone on sale at www.foxborohottubsdownload.com.

Speaking of side projects, Arctic Monkeys man Alex Turner has stopped singing of teen disillusionment for a bit to make epic, string-drenched pop with his mate Miles Kane as The Last Shadow Puppets. Their first single, The Age of the Understatement, races along nicely, underpinning the orchestra with galloping drums and reverb-heavy guitar. It's in download stores first on Monday.