воскресенье, 30 декабря 2007 г.
суббота, 15 декабря 2007 г.
четверг, 13 декабря 2007 г.
Six Organs Of Admittance-Shelter From The Ash
Six Organs Of Admittance-Shelter From The Ash
Psych meltdowns and intimate folk introspection from Ben Chasny and pals. Sometime Comets On Fire guitarist Chasny's Six Organs franchise is becoming а hardy perennial, issuing intense, ambitious albums on an annual basis. 5helrer From The Ash follows last year's sun Awakens and 2005's School0f The Flower - another impressive cocktail of Easterninflected drones, mantra-like vocals and thick slabs of empyrean noise guitar. Opener Alone With The A1one's solitary Е minor chord comes laced with e-bow hums, Robbie Basho-like raga extemporisations and, later, molten lava floes of electric guitar, while the less feral but equally potent strangled Road finds Chasny rummaging in the psychic backwoods while rainy acoustic guitars thrum and fiancёe E1isa Ambroglio (of noiseniks the Magik Markers) lends sensual vocal counterpoint. The darkly contagious title track, meanwhile, sounds like а dreamy psych-folk makeover of Blue Oyster Cult's Don't Fear The Reaper, and everywhere а subtly numinous quality pervades. David Sheppard
Eddie Vedder-Music For The Motion Picture Into The Wild
Eddie Vedder-Music For The Motion Picture Into The Wild
Pearl Jam swnger goes solo for soundtrack. Who better to provide the musical backdrop to the true story of а young man disappearing into the wilderness and his subsequent doom than the husky, forlornsounding Eddie Vedder? Collaborating with his friend and the film's director, Sean Penn, Vedder has put together а collection of folk songs built on acoustic guitar and banjo that showcase his tremulous baritone. Не does а grand job of colouring in the grey Alaskan skies and captures the loneliness of Christopher McCandless's freefall from society to freedom in the wilderness and down towards his ultimate fate. Lyrically, he may occasionally jar but it's hard not to be uplifted when he lets rip on the opener setting Forth or when he and 5leater-Kinney's Corin Tucker chime on Hard Sun.
Philip Wilding
Daft Punk-Alive 2007
VIRGIN
Live album from enduring Gallic dance stars. Their robot heads might prevent anyone seeing how much their faces might have aged, but on the evidence of this live album, Thomas Bangalter and Guy Manuel de Homem-Christo could have an alternative career advertising moisturiser. Recorded at an excitable hometown show at Palais Omnisports de Paris Bercy in June this year, Alive 2007 reveals that the duo still know how to target their electroweaponry straight at the adrenalin gland. The live setting fasts away the carapace of over-familiarity that has hardened round such tracks as One More Time and Da Funk, while the vocodered perfection of Around The World/Harder Faster Better stronger shows just what Kanye West sees in them. An alternative greatest hits compilation, it proves that the old sound of tomorrow can still make the grade today.
Victoria Segal
Eagles-Long Road Out Of Eden
Quintessential California band's first new studio album in 28 yeas, In the US you can oniy get it at ,Wal-Mart, It's not surprising that, after аll the tours and best-ofs, the Eagles have finally made an album of all-new material. What is а surprise is the size: an unniggardly 20 songs on two CDs, two of them epics, and аll (bar the few available on-line or as DVD bonus tracks) previously unreleased. Despite reports of exploring new musical directions, it sounds very late-era Eagles, apart from No More Walks In The Wood, whose harmonies and reflectiveness might have fallen off а David Crosby solo album, l Dreamed There Was No War, а pensive intrumental, Fast Company, sounding like bad Hall & Oates, and Long Road Out Of Eden, а 10minute horror on love and the 'war on terror' with а Middle Eastern intro and outro, Hotel California guitar heroics and unfortunate lyrics. There are some very bad lyrics on this album; first single How Long, one of the catchiest tracks, could have been another Take 1t Easy if the words weren't а collage of cliches. Best track: Timothy В. Schmit's unaffected Do something.
Sylvie Simmons
среда, 12 декабря 2007 г.
Wet Wet Wet-Timeless
The 1980s hitmakers pop in again. А name taken from а Scritti Politti song; revelations about Marti Pe11ow's former heroin addiction: their chart-busting statistics might add up but there's something about Wet Wet Wet that doesn't. After two decades of grinning balladry and pop schmaltz, it's hard not to hope that the Scottish quartet are going to use their reunion album to make the outrageous art-rock record of their dreams. sadly, Timeless isn't going to cause Lou Reed to gnash his teeth in - envy, but neither is it quite as grimly anodyne as it could have been. Admittedly, there is а grimly anodyne element - а desire for orchestral grandeur sinks into syrup on Thru' The Night and What Do You Know-but Run and the lachrymose Roy Orbison swell of 1п Every Heart (А Fire Burns) suggests Take That have toothy competition on the comeback trail.
Victoria Segal
The Autumns Fake Noise From A Box Of Toys
The Autumns Fake Noise From A Box Of Toys
The fourth album and fist in three yeas by the American purveyors of epic indie. Maybe it's been prompted by a string of Muse and Snow Patrol comparisons, but here The Autumns seem to be trying to wrestle themselves free of such comparisons with a new-found, syncopated restlessness. Clem, for example, features a classic pop melody -reminiscent of ELO - and although the highrise guitars are impressive, Steve Elkins' drum patterns are extraordinary, steering the song along a circuitous course. Vocalist Matt Kelly is perennially compared to Jeff Buckley, but rather than displaying that vulnerability, there's something narcissistic about Kelly's skyscraping falsetto. Не knows he can turn you on but would he bother to kiss you goodnight? Killer In Drag and Night Music are brooding beauties that evoke late-'90s Radiohead and although the abrupt shifts of Glass Jaw sound а mite overcooked, even when The Autumns err towards steroidal bluster, there's real substance in there too.
Mike Barnes
Kylie-X
Kylie-X
The princes of pop proudly presents her 10th album. With its breathy promises ("I turn on for you"), and song titles such as Nu-di-ty, it would be fair to assume you were in for some fairly steamy stuff on Kylie's 10th album. In fact, X really plays with a PG rating; Kylie's flimsy voice combined with the album's swirling strings and lite-beats tend to evoke images of hairdressing salons rather than hot passion. That said, there are some stand-out pop moments; the glitchy Heart Beat Rock is produced by pop whiz kid Calvin Harris, and Like A Drug sounds like a smooth, grooving update of Eurythmics' Sweet Dreams. Sampling Serge Gainsbourg's quivering strings for sensitized, however, only serves to highlight the album's lack of truly kneewobbling moments.
Sophie Harris
четверг, 6 декабря 2007 г.
THE TWO SIDES OF HERO WORSHIP
After reading the `Never Support Your Heroes' article [CR112], I felt compelled to put finger to keyboard regarding two such experiences of a similar nature. About 20 years ago. I bumped into Cozy Powell and his beautiful lady friend at the Marquee in London. We were all at the bar waiting to be served when I struck up a polite but very nervous conversation with this star and personal hero of mine. What a sweet guy: he couldn't have been any more approachable and pleasant to me. So much so I bought them both a drink and was about to leave them when he said to me, "Hold on, don't go, it's my round next!" I nearly fell over. True to his word we continued to drink and had a very pleasant, very funny conversation. I eventually left him and his young lady to rejoin my mates and felt on top of the world. News of his death many years later knocked me for six. A great guy, talented musician and huge loss to the rock world. Rest in peace Cozy, you're still missed. The flip side of this issue: About 10 years ago, I played drums in a local rock band and we were asked to support the Thin Lizzy tribute band, Dizzy Lizzy, at The Railway in Birmingham. "How cool's that?" I thought, knowing that Brian Tatler of Diamond Head fame was playing with them. On the night, I packed my precious gatefold copy of Borrowed Time, hoping to get the lovely Mr Tatler to squiggle on it and say something really cool and memorable to really make the occasion for me. In reality, he turned out to be the grumpiest old cock I've ever met. He told me he was "too busy" (playing with his guitar in the kitchen at The Railway) to give me the time of day. Thanks, mate - you rock. No, not really. If anyone's interested, I've got an . unsigned copy of Borrowed Time for sale. But I have wiped my arse with it. Rich D (Legs Up), Birmingham
среда, 5 декабря 2007 г.
Metallica have it covered
вторник, 27 ноября 2007 г.
Count Basie-Small Group Studio Recordings Complete 1952-1956
Count Basie-Small Group Studio Recordings Complete 1952-1956
The two Dance session albums, originally released on Norman Granz's Clef imprint and here reissued together, marked the resurrection of the Basie Orchestra after its brief dissolution in 1950. There was a good deal of continuity between the so-called "Old" and New Testament' versions of the band, although the 50s incarnation was less soloist-oriented. Its sound also boasted a new dynamism, with evertighter ensemble work and a host of fresh voicings. But, above all, as the title of these early recordings suggests, propelled by Freddie Green's guitar, the music was intended to be danceable - the mood is accordingly generally serene and stately rather than stomping. This fresh direction was determined by the introduction of new arrangers, notably Neil Hefti, a major contributor to Woody Herman's outfit in the Forties and the реп behind some of the sleeker, more insinuating numbers here. This Jazz Connections reissue also adds two cuts from the Clef album Basie, Blues Backstage' and `Rails'. If Dance Sessions shows the orchestra moving forward - albeit gently - to accommodate the shifting tastes of postwar audiences, there are times on the contemporaneous small Group Studio Recordings when Basie's own playing recalls that of his early hero Fats Waller, especially when his instrument of choice is the organ. Key to the main body of songs here, recorded as а sextet in December 1952, is the spirited interplay between trumpeter Joe Newman and Paul Quinichette, whose insistent Lester Young-isms earned him the nickname `Vice Pres'. Two numbers from an earlier session team the Count (again on organ) with an emergent Oscar Peterson, while the fast swinger `Parry Blues' pairs Ella Fitzgerald with Joe Williams (by this time - 1956- vocalist with the Basie Orchestra) for а goodnatured scatting duet. The last five tracks are from sessions featuring but not led by Basie.
Robert Shore
воскресенье, 25 ноября 2007 г.
Christophe Wallemme-Namaste
Bee Jazz
Wallemme is an in demand bass player on the Paris and French scene, and this well executed, well conceived album reflects much the cultural melting pot of contemporary Paris. France's colonial past has meant over the latter half of the twentieth century it has assimilated а wide range of immigrants from the African, North African and Mid-Eastern Diaspora, аll with their own musical traditions and traditional instruments. These have been thoughtfully integrated into Wallemme's music in а wholly organic way; the use of bass clarinet and percussion (dholak, ghatam, tabla, Kanjira) on ‘Holi' or the swirling mid-Eastern feel of Mon Jules' and 'Le Temps Des Moussons' using tabala, ghatam and various Indian percussion together with soprano lead lines and guitar unisons perfectly evoke an Arabian bazaar. This music is tastefully conceived and executed - even down to the framing of Wallemme's bass solo on ‘Namaste' - it may be world jazz, but it is not writ large, rather you hear the music first then the devices used in its construction, which is as it should be.
Stuart Nicholson
суббота, 24 ноября 2007 г.
Robert Wyatt-Comicopera
Domino
Comicopera is like meeting an oid friend. Conversation begins immediately where it last left off. What's new? How you been? Has it really been that long? No, really? Shame about so and so. It's not that nothing has changed. Static friendships die. The capacity to accommodate difference and change that revitalises the friendship. There are new influences and new songs. There are life-changing events. New loves and old ones rekindled. Life happens somewhere between comedy and tragedy - Comicopera. Robert Wyatt, his partner Alfie Benge and their comrades understand this well. There's observational comedy in 'А Beautiful Peace' and ‘А Beautiful War', romantic comedy in ‘Just As You Are' and slapstick in Orphy Robinson's ‘Pastafari'. We feel pity and loss for Hattie in ‘A.W.O.L.', while Richard Dawkins pops up cartoon-like on 'Be Serious' There's solidarity with the oppressed in `Haste Siempre Comandante' and in Robert's setting of Lorca's ‘Cancion dе Julieta' and righteous anger in Out Of The Blue'. We shared those thoughts and those emotions and then we danced together. Oh, how we danced to On The Town Square'. And then we laughed and laughed again, as if we were the very last ones to get the joke of ‘Anachronis’.
Duncan Heining
Tony Smith-The Window
In a similar way to the ‘Parental Advisory' label seen on many heavy metal and hip-hop/rap albums, Tony Smith's fifth solo album The Window really ought to carry a "Smooth Jazz free zone" label on the jewel case. Recorded live over three days, the three vocal tracks included on Smith's previous release Loyalty have on this occasion been dispensed with entirely. A long-standing featured guitarist with the touring band of US vibes legend Roy Ayers, the guitarists eight-track instrumental collection ranges from the catchy opener ‘Blister' to the oasis of calm provided by The Window, by way of the Zawinulesque chromatic bass line and memorably orgiastic climax of 'suspicious'. The guitarists catholicity of style is impressive. Even within the confines of a single track such as ‘Jekyll and Hyde' he can switch between James Brown style funk to a wailing, take no prisoners rock solo: Jimmy Page, Muddy Waters and Wes Montgomery all inform the Smith sound. Including keyboardist Jason Rebello and drummer Jerry Brown, the hand-picked band seem to revel in their surroundings. Fusing a jazz brain with a dues heart, Smith's coruscating signature sound and passionate intensity continues to impress.
Peter Quinn