APRIL 2007 Michael Powers - Prodigal Son (Baryon) The hardcore blues cognoscenti have always been able to locate new reserves of quality, albeit in the smallest of venues and on the most obscure of labels. In their world there’s always an old boy of 112 with a string of axe murders to his credit lurking in the potting shed of a prison farm somewhere, hollering about how his woman ‘done him wrong’ and waiting for Andy Kershaw to pop by with his cassette player. For those of us in the UK relying on some degree of mainstream cross-over, however, the last decade has been a lean one. The Fat Possum gang have done a sterling job in their own way, and creditable but undeniably minor talents such as Eugene Bridges and Sherman Robertson have kept the flag flying; but in truth few listeners can recall the last time a truly major star emerged since the death of Stevie Ray Vaughan. Suddenly that may be about to change. 2006 saw the final flowering of the Sam Cooke-indebted James Hunter, the delivery of Otis Grande’s best studio offering by some distance, deserved international acclaim for Joe Bonamassa’s ‘You and Me’, and the shock New Years Eve unveiling of Seasick Steve. And to this roll call we must add the name of Michael Powers, potentially the most important blues figure in a quarter of a century. ‘Prodigal Son’ is not without its flaws. There seems no need for a gospel reading of ‘Every Grain of Sand’, and whilst the man impresses as the most erudite exponent of the music since Buddy Guy, suspicions arise that this collection may be overly eclectic. Nonetheless, his range is massive and consistently excellent, and both his playing and singing oozes commitment from every pore, from the acoustic countrified ‘Compassion’ through the rock-laden ‘Goin Down’ to the brooding and hypnotic title track. He matches classic renditions with his own material seamlessly and maintains a voodoo pulse at the heart of every track. This album heralds the arrival of a serious talent, and as a spring chicken clocking up a mere 50-something years of age, one eminently capable and ideally positioned to lead the genre into its next twenty years. www.baryonrecords.com Neil B. Various Artists - Babylon’s Burning - The Rough ‘N’ Ready Rise Of Punk Rawk 1973 - 1978 (Castle) Compiled by Clinton Heylin as a companion piece to his recently published book of almost the same name, albeit eschewing the leap to grunge made in the book, this four disc set focuses its attention over a mammoth four and a half hours listening spread over ninety one tracks that laid the foundations for a truly era defining genre of music. Defining punk from an international perspective, the set includes inspired and inspiring choices from both sides of the Atlantic embracing pioneering and major players from New York, Cleveland and LA in the US and London, Manchester and Belfast in the UK, not forgetting the impact made by two of the most exciting and sometimes overlooked bands that punk produced from the other side of the world, namely Sydney’s Radio Birdman and Brisbane’s The Saints. Comprising rarities, demos, live cuts, BBC sessions and a smattering of classic singles, EP and album tracks, there’s an abundance of quality, variety and thrills on offer throughout the collection. Besides the aforementioned acts, the set also includes the likes of The New York Dolls, Suicide, Richard Hell & The Voidoids, Johnny Thunders’ Heartbreakers, The Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks, Subway Sect, X-Ray Spex, Penetration, Wire, The Fall, Stiff Little Fingers and The Ruts and many more. On occasion though you could justifiably argue that some of Heylin’s choices are more rough than ready. The Finns and Peter Laughner & Craig Bell for example, despite their undeniable historical interest are disappointingly poor. Pere Ubu’s stunning ‘Final Solution’ more than redresses the balance on the Cleveland front, though rather confusingly it’s listed on both the box and disc as a live version while the accompanying comprehensively annotated and illustrated book lists it as the original single version, which is correct. One or two anomalies do grate however - despite the set’s timeline of 1973 -1978, the opening two tracks by The Modern Lovers, both superb incidentally, were in fact recorded in 1972. And Heylin deliberately confesses to bypassing several key US protagonists like The Ramones, Talking Heads and Television, despite a photo of the latter taken during their Richard Hell era adorning the cover of disc one, which is a tad contradictory. Despite some other glaring omissions - no Clash, Jam, Devo, Stranglers, for example and a propensity to over represent certain artist’s contributions at the expense of including more bands and a broader picture - this is still a must have for any self-respecting fan of punk or indeed any serious fan of rock music per se. Heylin wisely acknowledges the debt punk’s UK originals owed to the early to mid-70s pub rock scene by including cuts by Dr Feelgood - don’t forget it was the Feelgood’s late front man Lee Brilleaux who famously lent Dave Robinson £400 to start Stiff Records in 1976 as well as a cut from the Ian Dury fronted Kilburn & The High Roads. Kudos too for not taking it all too seriously by including Alberto Y Lost Trios Paranoias ‘Snuff Rock’ EP in its entirety which was one of Stiff’s early releases in 1977. A few oversights and missteps aside - Essential Logic and The Prefects being particularly hard-going - this is a finely compiled set delivering an abundance of riveting, exciting truly ground breaking music, much of which still packs a hefty punch thirty years after the fact. Geraint J. Various Artists - Springs Re:Makes and Mixes of RF (Odd Shaped Box) Ryan Francesconi’s concept behind Springs is a simple one, the notion that to remix or re-record compositions results in their rebirth. The collection offers 10 “new” works from underground artists including Familiar Trees, .Tape., Sora, Greg Davis, FilFla, Sawako, Midori Hirano and RF himself. There is inventiveness aplenty which can best be illustrated, in He Can Jog’s imposing percussive accompaniment of sampled “crushed Cheetos” and camera shutters. Being a creation of minimal instrumentation, ethereal vocals, found sound, samples and lo-fi production values creates a cohesive whole with a strange naturalness for the digital proceedings. RdL wind up with 8 minutes of notable understated folk. www.myspace.com/rfremix Will F. Chris Colepaugh and the Cosmic Crew - In Your Backyard (Malkin Music) Sources inside the Ministry of Taste today confirmed that the thirty year embargo on 70’s Rock has officially been lifted. Which is very good news for Canadians Chris Colepaugh and the Cosmic Crew, whose latest release pointedly invokes the spirit of the Allman Brothers, Stephen Stills and the Band. There’s no grave robbing going on though. Solid riffs and soaring solos, propelled by a disciplined but soulful rhythm section, nod respectfully at the likes of Tom Petty, John Fogerty and the Black Crowes without being any the worse for it. These songs burn with a personal frustration and small town claustrophobia that is several worlds away from Californian beaches, while a crisp, uncluttered production lets loose a pop sensibility that is genuinely uplifting and makes them at least as contemporary as anything by My Morning Jacket or Kings of Leon. No slack at all here, just 14 gems and a little treasure of an album. www.colepaugh.com Neil B. Winter Flowers - S/T (Attack Nine Records) The eponymously titled release from California's Winter Flowers is a beautiful, soft amalgam of guitar, mandolin, glockenspiel, harpsichord and touches of sitar. It is a curiously English folk influenced affair, what with their perfect pronunciation and allusions to ‘the garden hedge growing high with thorns’ and Donovan cover, ‘Isle of Islay’. ‘Winter Bird’ is an absolute understated classic, in Velvet’s ‘Sunday Morning’ vein, with Astrid Quay delivering a perfect and pure vocal worthy of any great chanteuse. Instances of their magnificent three part harmonies, such as on ‘Ivory Path’, shine proffering native influences of the best period (late 60’s / early 70’s) harmony groups. Winter Flowers are certain contenders for the neo-nu-wyrd-folk(!) title. www.attacknine.com Will F. Brothers and Sisters - Brothers and Sisters (Calla Lily) In embracing the sun-kissed jangle and laid-back groove of 60’s West Coast rock many less discerning listeners were inclined to overlook the sinister undercurrents running beneath the surf and the waves. Those dark influences that gave rise to Arthur Lee’s paranoia, Tim Buckley’s self-destructive compulsion and Neil Young’s grim prophesies still remain however, and Brothers and Sisters don’t intend us to remain ignorant of them. In fleeing their native L.A. for Austin Texas this eight piece have taken both their musical footprints and their profound reservations about the people and places of contemporary California with them. The best of these songs, ‘New Life’, ‘Los Angeles’, ‘Breathing Lesson’ and ‘Going South’ adequately represent both, filling out a conventional rock format with muted piano and banjo to create a density not unlike ‘On the Beach’. Elsewhere it doesn’t work so well, and while the litany of heartbreak, desertion and betrayal continues, the lyrics are more predictable and the tunes underdeveloped, rendering the whole slightly less convincing. www.thebrothersandsisters.com Neil B. MV & EE with The Bummer Road - Green Blues (Ecstatic Peace) In quick succession to 2006's Mother of Thousands (as is their usual pace) MV & EE present Green Blues. It opens with an uncharacteristic (though not unpleasant) number, ‘East Mountain Joint’ (excuse the pun), with a fairly orthodox hand clapped beat, which one could consider a bid for commercial success - this notion is soon gratefully expelled. ‘Canned Happiness’’ riff - borrowed from Norman Greenbaum's ‘Spirit in the Sky’ signifies the pivotal change in direction, from the backwoods and mountain roads to way up beyond the clouds. MV & EE's signature sound is unmistakable (yet generally heavier) and their fearless approach to death and their hopes of absolute freedom remain. The tracks - laced with their ‘fingerstyle noise / space’ and Mellotron cameos from Dinosaur Jr’s J Mascis - rattle, clatter and scream their ever-stretching way to the astonishing 18 minute closer, ‘Solar Hill’. This is an immense accomplishment and serves to progress their brand of distorted country blues further skyward. www.ecstaticpeace.com Will F. Creech Holler - With Signs Following (Self Released) If you were looking for the missing link between the hoedown and the black mass then look no further. Electrification of old folk songs rarely comes off, and half of this album is from ‘traditional’ sources; but panic ye not because Creech Holler are more the inbred country cousins of The Immortal Lee County Killers than they are the grandsons of Fairport Convention. That said ‘The Ballad of Mathie Groves’ is a disinterment of the very same ‘Matty Groves’, only this time with webbed hands and six toes. What we have here is full-on fuzzed-up slide guitar, frenzied and insistent drumming (complete with footstomps), and an eerie rasping vocal sunk so low in the mix that it sounds like wind filtered through the branches of dying trees. Their characters, such as ‘Lester Ballard’ roam the hills by night, preach ‘The Gospel of Judas’ and are justly visited with a ‘Plague of Frogs’ in a drunken, dirty and dangerous world where this demented hillbilly blues is what they cut loose to on a typical East Tennessee Saturday night. www.creechholler.multiply.com Neil B. Jeremiah Lockwood - American Primitive (Vee-Ron Records) Jeremiah Lockwood is a young man. He’s from New York and he used to front a Klesmer band. But that was before his genre reassignment. This is an album of American roots music. The clue is in the title. It’s simple, but it comes in lots of varieties, and it’s beautifully original. Folk music. Country blues. Ry-Cooder-style slide guitar. Captain-Beefheart-style brass. Banjo. Sax. Little bells. A scattergun shot at American tradition. And it works. He’s young. He’s not settled down yet. Good man. Excellent album. www.jeremiahlockwood.com Paul C. John Prine & Mac Wiseman - Standard Songs For Average People (Oh Boy) Many moons ago, Cowboy Jack Clement suggested to John Prine that he join up with bluegrass legend Mac Wiseman for an album of duets. The years past and Prine eventually contacted Wiseman; they chatted about music, put together lists of songs that they’d like to record, and were surprised to find that there were seven songs they had in common on their lists. So ‘Standard Songs For Average People’ was born. It’s a nice story and the album is even better. Their voices work together beautifully, usually taking turns on verses, and coming together on the choruses. It’s not rocket science, and doesn’t need to be, it’s just two old timers singing some of their favourite songs, with some great musicians on hand, including Jamie Hartford, Ronnie McCoury, Tim O’Brien, and even Cowboy Jack turns up on dobro. www.ohboy.com Rob F. Al “Coffee” McDaniel - A Shoe is a Shoe (CPA Records) Al “Coffee” McDaniel, sounds like someone trying to give himself a nickname, presumably on the basis that he’s a crazy kind of guy who drinks a lot of coffee. This is a double CD. On the cover and sleeve notes there are five pictures of pink ribbons and three ‘special notes’ telling us that part of the purchase price goes to a breast cancer charity. If you want to help the cause I suggest you just make a donation and don’t bother with the album. Apparently he’s resident at a restaurant in Florida. Maybe Floridians like this kind of stuff in the background while they’re eating, but I wouldn’t recommend anyone actually listens to it. www.almcdaniel.com Paul C. Joey Wright - Jalopy (Black Hen) A busy full-time musician, Joey Wright plays guitar and mandolin with Sarah Harmer, co-writes and plays with his wife, Jenny Whiteley, and when he wants to give his fingers a proper workout, he turns out with Toronto bluegrass legends, Crazy Strings. Then he does his own thing, in this case a 12 track collection of beautifully executed acoustic instrumentals. The 11 originals and 1 cover (Duke Ellington’s ‘Come Sunday’) hop sprightly between genres, from Hawaiin luau, via Gypsy wagon to packporch mountain home. Jalopy is not only an Americana record, in its broadest sense, but it connects the dots with plenty of Old World influences picked up along the way. And you know what they say about variety... www.blackhenmusic.com Rob F. Anti Atlas - Between Two (Tangled Up / One Little Indian) Anti Atlas is the collaboration of composer Ned Bigham and producer Chris Hufford, who between them can provide a cv of heroic and extreme proportions - possibly trivial details include producing early Radiohead tracks, composing brass fanfares for cathedrals and drumming for Neneh Cherry - you get the picture. Described as classical meets electronica, ‘Between Two’ is a gallant attempt to marry two theoretically disparate genres, which works remarkably well in practise, though doesn’t deliver much in the way of genuine excitement. Strings and gentle beats seem to be prevalent, and while they’re obviously following in the footsteps of innovators like Eno and Gavin Bryars, ‘Between Two’ doesn’t have quite the same magic as the former’s ‘Discreet Music’. www.indian.co.uk Jim P. The Crooked Jades - World’s On Fire (Self Released) This is pure, honest beautiful American music in the old style. The Crooked Jades take you to a different place, a different time. It’s a bad place to live, but it’s an honour to visit. There should be a film written just so they could do the sound track. There’s tragedy, loss and despair, humour, scary stuff, and lots of gospel-style redemption. The title track is the last track on the record, a judgement day song about the San Francisco earthquake. The salvation of the godly will come from this apocalypse. The first track, ‘Can’t Stare Down A Mountaineer’, is as beautiful as it’s weird. The 13 tracks in between are all wonderful. www.crookedjades.com Paul C. Kim Beggs - Wanderer’s Paean (Caribou) If you wake up hungover with half a soul on a Sunday morning, you will want to listen to this. It’s like Emmylou and Suzanne Vega decided to hunker down around Michelle Shocked’s camp fire. Like all good Americana, folk / country music, the melodies and structures go where you’d most like them to and it’s a damn fine collection of tunes revolving around what preoccupies us most: who we love, why we love them, why we made them angry and, finally, why they left us. Issues people like Yukon based Beggs, former miner, have been telling and warning us about for years. And we still don’t learn. There’s some trad. country bits (Ain’t Gonna Work Tomorrow) and traces of the Eagles (All The Good Times) but, even with all points of reference, this is Kim Beggs. Heads up Lucinda Williams. www.kimbeggs.com Dave B. Various Artists - From the Deepest Depths of a Bottomless Light (House of Alchemy) From the Deepest Depths of a Bottomless Light is a collection of symphonies predominantly focusing on the filth, decay and grime of the city. The North Sea's opener, ‘Green Horn’ daydreams of cleaner, simpler environment but they are soon awoken by Antique Brothers' ‘Clipped Wrists and Slit Signals’, with it's asthmatic breathe of industry. From hereon we are carried downward, deeper into the dirt. Anvil Salute's ‘The Hell of the Same’ provides a welcome moment of relief, featuring exquisite tamboura drone, before we are transported back to the city's cracked underside via the screeching subway cars of Scott Valkwitch's ‘In the Red’. The trash-rock / anti-folk of Howlin Magic is the nearest to any traditional form that the compilation offers and Sleepwalkers Local 242 and (VxPxC)'s ‘Fresh Vocalizations’ provide further low (read high) lights... The city can be one dark place. www.thehouseofalchemy.com Will F. Peg Simone - The Deeper You Get (Catdolls) On Peg Simone’s MySpace page, her list of influences includes Patti Smith, the Gun Club and Sicilian blood oranges - you know you’re on safe ground with this one. In fact, it’s the first Gun Club album that The Deeper You Get most recalls, not that it’s any overt duplication of the sound Jeffrey Lee Pierce and his compadres laid down, it’s more of a hairs-on-the-back-of-the-neck thing. Simore’s vocals seem to skirt around the tune in much the same way, and when she cranks up that big ol’ dirty blues slide guitar wail, I get the same sort of buzz as when I first heard ‘Ghost On The Highway’ or ‘Preaching The Blues’. Of Simone’s songs, ‘In The Park’ shimmers like something black and precious, and ‘I’m Calling’ gets an unctuous little groove going before coming to a premature and altogether untimely demise. www.pegsimone.com Rob F. Uke Of Spaces Corners County - So Far On The Way (Trd Wld Records LP) From New Orleans, and nothing to do with rock ‘n’ roll or rhythm ‘n’ blues, this is definitely one for the New Weird America directory / Hall of Fame. First impression was that this sounds like Legendary Stardust Cowboy, sort of Dada Hillbilly jams. I loved the instrumental track that ends side one, with ‘ah ah ah’(s) sung over it... Mostly full of energy ear bending stuff, on the b side, ‘Bird On A Wire’ (nothing to do with Leonard Cohen) is sort of Appalachian jug band without the jug. Dan B’s singing and guitar are superb and the lyrics are great in the style of say Jonathan Richmond, Holy Modal Rounders, Jad Fair or even Tom Waits. A track called ‘This Old World’ with lyrics about burying your knife in the red red dirt is lovely. What you get is a sunny West Texas collaborative effort with adapted kazoo, ukulele, bells, claps, percussion some times Tiny Tim-like vocals, cicadas and birds, trees, creaking floor boards, and a file! What does it all mean? Ask Dan Beckman, Amy Moon O.S. and co... I feel like Harry Smith might have done if he had discovered this! Fab freak folk. Terry W. Antique Brothers - Emerge, Murky Sunlight. Vol 5 (Phantom Limb) Antique Brothers second release (Vols 2 to 4 yet to be released) is again recorded live onto recylcled 1/4”, 8 track tape. This lo-fi recording technique creates an instant aura to their output which is based, predominantly, around guitar loops. The slack tuned guitars (giving the more-ish buzzing found in other freak folk recordings) are kept pretty clean whilst the effects and treatments don the backing of found sound, sampled loops and percussion. Even in the sparsest moments there are no holes which allow the lolloping maraca, tambourines, etc. to enter and leave without incident. With experimental music, by it’s very nature, some parts work the least, but it is these instances serve to emphasise the excellent. A triumph of gritty industrial folk music. www.phantomlimbrecordings.com Will F. Awesome Color - Awesome Color (Ecstatic Peace) Like a stoner Adam and Eve this band must be true innocents, with no shame and precious little restraint. How else could they serve up such an uninhibited mélange of Stooges, Sabbath, Floyd and Queens of the Stone Age without falling prey to the calculated plagiarism of Wolfmother? On this Thurston Moore-produced debut the ghosts of rock past present and future fight to the death, while above the carnage, the screams and the pounding thunder, a dazzling display of, well, Awesome Color explodes into space to light up the scene. Opener ‘Grown’ is ‘Satisfaction’ slashed to ribbons by Josh Homme and Nick Olivieri; ‘Ridin’ is ‘Paranoid’ being throttled by Iggy Pop. ‘Freeman’ has Wayne Kramer slowly crushed by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and Deke Leonard tortures John Cale in ‘Animal’ as Syd Barrett eggs him on. Elsewhere the likes of Monster Magnet and Fireball Ministry roam around slaughtering at will. It’s brutal stuff, toxic, psychotic, addictive and thoroughly entertaining. Every home should have a copy. www.ecstaticpeace.com Neil B. The Unseen Guest - Checkpoint (Tuition Music) This is an album of ten original tracks and a Leonard Cohen cover. The Unseen Guest is an Irish / Indian duo, recorded on a German label with several Indian backing musicians. The CD is packaged with lots of travel photos. But that’s not the point. These are powerful songs, about people, not places. The album is like a book of dark short stories, where things are never as they appear, but always a bit sinister. There is a passionate one night stand, ‘in the morning you told me I was free, and I walked home with bruises on my feet’, a charming man whose charm derives from his absence of feeling, the betrayal of someone by letting them think you love them. How do you know what’s in the other person’s mind? www.unseenguest.com Paul C. Susan And The Surftones - Fluid Drive (Acme Brothers Records) Surfaris, Chantays, Dick Dale and all the rest they had some great surf bands out there in the West, and still do! These instrumentals (with a little bit of Susan’s great voice to introduce the live numbers) get me, as a Brit, thinking of The Shadows, Tornadoes and Jud Proctor (who deserves a mention). Diddle diddle diddle dee and off we go, never mind Tom Jones’ version or Shirley Bassey’s, the Moontrekkers (first instrumental I ever bought) come to mind on track 2, “I (Who Have Nothing)”, with cool organ stabs. Some lounge exotica to sit nicely next to Don Tiki. A brilliant cover of The Beatles’ ‘Come Together’. Some Duane Eddy / Piltdown Men bass and Mysterians organ and I also like the drumming. I’d love to see this band live, especially on a bill with The Cramps - this is good and they cover a Velvets number too! The closing ‘Blue Moon’ is my favourite version next to The Marcels’, and you can pogo to it. www.susanandthesurftones.com Terry W Mohammed ‘Jimmy’ Mohammed - Takkabel! (Terp) This is my album of the year so far. Mohammed ‘Jimmy’ Mohammed is a 50 year old blind bar-singer from the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, who specialises in singing the songs of countryman, Tlahoun Gessesse. ‘Takkabel!’ was recorded in 2005 in Europe at the Moers Jazz Festival, though it doesn’t sound like a live recording. He’s accompanied by a traditional drummer, a krar player (5-string harp) and Dutch jazz drummer, Hans Bennink. The combination of instruments - the playing is marvellous throughout - and Mohammed’s vocals is beautifully suggestive of something almost from another world. There are elements of what I recognise to be a distinct north-east African style, but Bennink’s looped rhythms and the occasional saxophone blast, courtesy of Getatchew Mekurya, move the music into new, previously unexplored realms. Just wonderful. www.terprecords.nl Rob. F Forget Cassettes - Salt (Tangled Up) However stink things are for you right now you won’t want to be trading places with Beth Cameron, birth mother of the nine howls of anguish that make up ‘Salt’. This is a seriously pissed off lady. Hammered by a malignant climate and haunted by a fickle and treacherous government, she also suffers from personal life catalogue of sorrow, danger and double-edged swords. Thankfully her tales of woe gain everything in the telling, and while the more plaintive passages have traces of the dreaded of Indie Woman’s Warble, when she lashes out the band cuts loose with her and some tasty rock and roll kicks in. Undeniable passion plus jagged guitars and good old-fashioned tub thumping drumming give Forget Cassettes an edginess that saves this from being awkwardly voyeuristic and turns it into something well worth hearing. www.indian.co.uk Neil B. Sleepwalkers Local 242 - Things We Put our Friends Through (House of Alchemy) Packaged in an exciting hand sprayed slim-line case the hand sprayed 3” CDR packs a glorious 8 tracks in under 19 minutes!! Simple (that’s not to say uninteresting) post-rock guitar melodies nestle alongside loops, drones, synth and distortion pedal to create these passionate mini film scores. As title suggests Sleepwalkers seem to lack confidence and continually, and unnecessarily, shy away from the indulgences that could be (probably to the taste of their ‘friends’). Let’s hope that this serves as an excerpt of what will be... put your friends through more. www.thehouseofalchemy.com Will F Jane Gillman - List of Wishes (High Road) One more singer songwriter from the lone star state with echoes of Cathryn Craig and Laura Cantrell. Gillman has a crystal clear voice, think Karen Carpenter in a Stetson, which works best on the slower tracks such as ‘Dream and Drive’ and ‘Angel of Dreams’. The opening track ‘Madonna of the Trail’ is reminiscent of Jenny Lewis albeit a little less sleazy and passionate affair. Generally a slow burner which does creep up on you but a bit more Texas red dirt would be on my wish list. www.janegillman.com Alan H. Gojogo - All is Fair (Galaxia) Gojogo’s debut is a well balanced hybridisation of predominantly European strings (double bass, violin and cello) and Indian percussion. It swathes effortlessly between styles that lean towards chamber music and jazz improvisation as well as more Indian forms. Shorter, more traditional pieces lead the album to ‘All is Fair in Love and War’. From hereon the tracks extend, both in length and in their use of instruments, and are infused with subtle experimentation - ’Yangsta’(‘s) beat heavy composition incorporates sampled loops and processed percussion and the album’s alluring closer, ‘Hush’ further use of electronica. It is ‘Aviary’, however that steals the show with it’s lengthy percussion solo. www.galaxia-platform.com Will F. The Reasonable Men - The Reasonable Men (Self Released) A pocket sized five-tracker from The Reasonable Men, an alternative pop quintet from Vancouver, BC. With both keyboards and guitars to the fore, they spurn the current trend towards post-punk manoeuvres, but instead play their very catchy songs with a nod to early REM and, to a lesser extent, The Rain Parade. Indeed, a gentle paisley jangle pervades most of their material, and singer Alex Hudson adds his own distinctive vocal twist on standout tracks ‘Sad Sack O’ Bones’ and ‘Undersold’. www.thereasonablemen.com Rob F. Nadja - Touched (Alien8) Unlike their contemporaries in the curious subterranean world of extreme metal, Nadja’s music is not the stuff of nightmares. While there is an unmistakable darkness about this second release from Aidan Baker (guitars, vocals, flutes, drum machine) and Leah Buckareff (bass, vocals), it remains an enticing sonic exploration boasting intermittent passages of rare beauty. When the pounding beats of the two opening pieces subside in favour of the hypnotic pulse of ‘Incubation/Metamorphosis’, they invoke Tangerine Dream as much as they do Sunn ((O)). There is both titanic neo-orchestral grandeur and lush white noise here, and plenty to be enjoyed. Unlikely to headline ‘V’ this summer, but look out for them at All Tomorrows Parties some day soon. www.alien8recordings.com Neil B. Ibrahim Ferrer - Mi Sueno (World Circuit) Ibrahim Ferrer was the undoubted star of the Buena Vista Social Club and ‘Mi Sueno’ is his final recordings before his death in 2005. Ibrahim said that up until this album he was never allowed to record boleros, but thanks to Buena Vista all that changed when ‘a little bird knocked on my door and I got where I was meant to be’. It’s a much more intimate album than Social Club - his voice and the piano combining to produce a sultry romantic set. The title means ‘My Dream’ and every track serves up a new treat. This perfect cocktail music is Ferrer’s final tour de force so pour yourself a rum punch kick off your shoes and let the voice of Cuba send you floating away to Havana. www.worldcircuit.co.uk Alan H. A Taste of Ra - A Taste of Ra (II) (Hapna) Absolutely mesmerising (2nd part of planned trilogy) Psych-Folk-Free-Jazz amalgam from Sweden (The Fox and the Frog is narrated in a truly Scandinavian folklore style). The recording weaves it’s magical way down passages of unadulterated beauty into caverns of eerie, otherworldly musical landscapes. These are augmented by high register Ornette Coleman like horns, recorder, chants, scats and vocals (sounding somewhere betwixt David Sylvian and Marc Bolan). It is smattered with Eastern inflected tracks without use of traditional eastern instruments - excluding the fabulous closer, ‘Radhe-Shyam In Bliss Land’, with it’s pleasurable harmonium backdrop. One for the aficionados of folk / new-folk with a sense of real adventure. www.hapna.com Will F. Jenny Whiteley - Dear (Black Hen) The much anticipated follow-up to Jenny Whiteley’s ‘Hopetown’ album doesn’t disappoint. Backed by an impressive band, the Canadian singer-songwriter hits all the right buttons with a collection of country-folk-roots originals which tickle both ends of the emotional scale. Yep, you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll be swept away by Whiteley’s crystal clear voice and unaffected lyrics. Highlights include the easy charmer ‘Write Me Away’, the upbeat ‘Banjo Girl’ (you will smile) and the duet with the Vancouver rumble that is Jim Byrne, on ‘Other Side Of life’. Also a special mention for Steve Dawson, whose production is faultless. www.blackhenmusic.com Rob F. Lovehatehero - White Lies (Ferret) The current chart success of Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance doesn’t disguise the fact that, artistically at least, the post-hardcore bubble has burst. The Taking Back Sundays and Funeral for a Friends of this world are suffering seriously diminishing returns, and this ought to send out a timely warning to Lovehatehero, who wear their influences through Thursday to Gorilla Biscuits a little too prominently on their sleeve. There’s no problem with the songs as such. There are twelve very tidy anthemic tunes on offer on this, their second album, and (slightly self-indulgent themes aside) they’re infectious, pacey, skillfully played and passionately sung. But there’s an unavoidable impression that like My Awesome Compilation and others, they should be thinking about moving on. Screamo vocals are getting to be old hat, and the overt popiness of so many Kerrang favourites isn’t taking the genre anywhere at all. Its time perhaps to sit up and take notice of those important lessons that Iron Maiden are still trying to get across to the aspiring young metal bands. www.lovehatehero.com Neil B. Grayson Capps - Wail & Ride (Hyena) Grayson Capps: actor turned singer turned songwriter, then actor again (alongside John Travolta) and now back to singing and songwriting. The potential was there for Wail & Ride (his second album) to be truly rotten, but it’s not. In fact it’s everything you’d hope it to be. The style recalls 70’s Americana favourites such as Guy Clark and Kris Kristofferson (perhaps a role model), and the songs flow as naturally as water from a river. And like his esteemed predecessors this New Orleans native is not afraid to ruffle a few feathers along the way. Those lucky enough to catch Capps on his recent UK jaunt will need no convincing of his remarkable storytelling talents, and maybe he’s just very well rehearsed, as every good actor should be, but it’s still a pleasure to witness, whether on CD or small stage. www.graysoncapps.com Rob F. Sean Smith, Adam Snider & Matt Baldwin - Berkeley Guitar (Tompkins Square) Berkeley Guitar’s inception began with Joshua Rosenthal locating original recording artists That had appeared on Takoma Records, Takoma Spring compilation. This 3rd compilation includes pieces from 3 contemporary guitarists, from the Bay Area, inspired by those original artists, such as John Fahey. Sean Smith opens with a complex style of most rapidly shifting melodies. He lays down the darkest track and is a technically accomplished player. The style of Adam Snider has a more country edge and is cut from tapestries of lone horse riders and soaring eagles. Matt Baldwin’s folk-blues concludes, conjuring images of steam trains cutting expanses of open plain. Although a new release it tends towards a spirited musical insight of a bygone west. www.tompkinssquare.com Will F. The Apples in Stereo - New Magnetic Wonder (Simian) Imagine the Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan with a sense of humour and an overpowering urge to play nothing but the tunes that we all know that he can write. Take yourself back to the summer when you first heard, ‘Put A Little Birdhouse In Your Soul’, or even further when you nearly dropped your Jublee the first time you heard ‘Mr Blue Sky’. In short, this is the only soundtrack that anyone smelling of surfwax will need this summer. If you can, download ‘Beautiful Machine’, and then run out, buy a record player and listen to it on vinyl. If the Delgados, were American, and not devastated by tragedy, this what they might sound like and these are the things they would sing about. It’s all mostly fantastic. Also keep your ears open for the invention of new musical scale! www.applesinstereo.com Dave B. Bone-Box - Death Of A Prize Fighter (Fat Northerner) Against all odds, Manchester’s Bone-Box take on the homespun heart and soul of the American deep south and come away a mite weather-beaten, battered and bruised, but with their honour intact. Their stylised interpretation of gritty, downbeat country vibes, desert horns and Mariachi marches, retains it’s northern English roots throughout, while letting their murky Texicana fantasies run riot. Like Tom Waits on Special Brew, they lurch with beguiling abandon through imaginary rustic tumbleweed strewn badlands, never forgetting to pack a decent song, and an OS map for the long drive home. It works for me because disappointment and desolation are universal, though Manchester never seemed so far away. www.bone-box.com Jim P. Ronnie Baker Brooks - The Torch (Watchdog) The theme of this album is innovation. On the title track Ronnie accompanies his dad, Lonnie Brooks, and several other old timers, who sing, ‘we’ve paved the way for you to carry the torch of the blues’. There’s plenty of good stuff, but if it wants to be judged on how far the torch has been carried, then it hasn’t been hugely successful. 16 out of the 17 tracks have not made it past the 1970s. In some ways that’s not such a bad thing, the 70s was a good decade. The really innovative track is ‘If It Don’t Make Dollars Then It Don’t Make Sense’, a gutsy, funky blues that morphs into a rap, sung by someone called ‘Al Kapone’. It works perfectly, right up to the lazy fade out at the end. A good album, but not a trail-blazer. www.ronniebakerbrooks.com Paul C. Various Artists - The Other Side: Music from East Nashville (Red Beet) There’s vigour, innovation and a history to this that I struggle to find in a lot of the music that us old colonialists produce. The sum of the parts on this 31-track compilation results in a huge, innovative anthology of all that’s appealing and touching about country, Americana and folk rock. The electric tracks chime and surge; the acoustic ones soothe and reassure. There’s too much to recommend, but if you can, open a bottle to ‘Ol Storm’ (if only someone in the UK would write a song like this about John Reid), ‘Five Year Town’ and ‘From A Rooftop’. There’s also a fantastic John Peel tribute track by Paul Birch. www.redbeetrecords.com Dave B. Unlucky Atlas - S/T (Self Released) Part instrumental, part song, Unlucky Atlas' EP / mini LP is an experiment which absorbs textures of cited influences as diverse as Nick Drake and Fugazi! Played in the main on acoustic instruments the guitars are played with low tuning and strummed with abandon whilst fiddle, cello and auto harp softly compliment. The sounds of hardcore distorted guitar can be heard but are kept low in the mix so as not to distract from the album’s intention. The sweet sounding vocals of Erica Burgner are a total contradiction to the sinister and grim anti-war narrative. The result of this experiment is an unnerving, yet compelling death-folk music that should be explored further. www.unluckyatlas.com Will F. To See Reviews From March 2007 Click Here