A to Z Album and Gig Reviews
Since their last record (2005's Love What You Do), the Hackensaw Boys have clearly been living that title philosophy to the full, with a relentless touring schedule yet finding time to make it into the studio to cut this new set. It's so darned short that it feels like it was cut in one take almost, on a whistle-stop visit (but no it wasn't - it was done in two winter visits!), and it sure embodies every ounce of the band's defiant spirit. It flies in on a headlong dash with a breakneck breakdown (the hopeful Look Out Dog, Slow Down Train - what a title!), and the pace never really lets up much for the next 37 minutes; having said that, it's not wall-to-wall frenetic and neither are there any tracks taken at less than medium-fast. As for personnel, well I'm not sure about this, but there are six band members listed on the inner tray although I can't compare the roster in detail with the cryptically named crew mentioned on Love What You Do. But whatever the lineup, Look Out's another satisfying high-voltage collection of material celebrating the joy of old-time music and put across with all the charge and energy of prime Ramones. Sure, there are one or two moments of relative repose, such as the mournful Sally Ann (tho' even this song is taken at a no-nonsense mid-tempo lick 'cos these guys refuse to drag their heels) and the relaxed jazzy swing of Too Much Time. Even the closing Just One Change wastes no time in jettisoning its measured little prelude and mid-song interlude for a race to the centre of the spinning disc! The full-on charge of numbers like Blue-Eyed Girl and FDR is probably still the aspect of the band's art that sticks in the mind most, but what this album lacks (at least when set against Love What You Do) is the rounding-out, the contrast and variety of expression that their slower material can give so pleasingly and effectively. Nine of the album's 12 songs were written from within the group, I learn from the press release, but sadly the skimpy package doesn't include any details or credits, let alone liner notes. I can only guess that maybe this album's been rushed through the presses to make it in time for the band's small UK tour (late September-early October).
David Kidman July 2007
Hackensaw Boys - Love What You Do (EMI/Nettwerk)
The press-quote byline "think of the Ramones mixed with the Carter Family" may be suitably eye-catching, but it ain't the deal as far I'm concerned. Sure, there's both a high-octane energy and a genuine old-time feel to the Hackensaw Boys' music, but that's where the comparison ends I suspect. Growing up in the Blue Ridge city of Charlottesville, the Boys've been plying their driving blend of old-time bluegrass since 1999, releasing their first (distinctly home-made) disc in 2000. At that time they were an unwieldy 12-piece that barely crammed into a coach, but two further albums along the road they've since slimmed down to a more tourable six-man unit (comprising the enigmatically named Salvage, Shiner, Mahlon and The Kooky-eyed Fox together with either Pee Paw and Dante J, or Four and Baby J., depending on whether you believe the liner note or the press handout - confused: you betcha!). A cursory or first listen reveals these boys to have absorbed a wider slew of influences even than the Carters and the Ramones in putting together their heady mix of oldtime-with-attitude; the opener is a charming and atmospheric number, Sun's Work Undone, replete with well-judged instrumental touches (banjo, mandolin, acoustic guitar and echoey ol' fiddle out there in the backwoods), whereas the second track (Cannonball) is a complete contrast, more like Hayseed Dixie, a breakneck dash that makes the ensuing We Are Many seem like mere granny-punk! Mecklenburg County is pure mountain breakdown, whereas Kiss You Down There is a naughty little strut down honky-tonk rockabilly lane and Parking Lot Song is a fun jugband-bluesy throwaway. But then there's All Good Dogs, whose wistfulness is more reminiscent of Peter Rowan or Earth Opera. The Hackensaws also do a really neat line in road-movie introspection (Alabama Shamrock, High Faller), and if anything this quieter side is more prevalent on Love What You Do than the iconoclastic thrash side. Backings are sparse yet luxurious, unexpectedly delicate for the most part, and with some cool vocal harmonies that stretch right back in time to their mentors. This is a very satisfying album that proved even better than I'd allowed for and made me want to trail back to the Boys' previous releases. It's so good that the Hackensaw Boys love what they do - and so will you I'm sure.
David Kidman
It's fashionable to dismiss 'prog rock' as outdated, pretentious and 'arty', it's a bit like saying that having a Simpsons poster on your wall is cooler than an original painting.
So thank God for people like ex-Genesis man Steve Hackett, Wild Orchids may never be 'album of the week' on Radio 2 but it shows that inventiveness, adventure and daring are still alive and well.
Unless you happen to be a confidante of Hackett, it's virtually impossible to say with any certainty just exactly what is meant by a lot of the music. Then again how much of Hackett's ideas you need to enjoy Wild Orchids, is debatable, because the music is designed to fire the imagination, not explain itself and in that it succeeds.
Where Hackett does slightly overdo the self-indulgence is with the track titles, the second track on the album is an exotic and pleasant weave of the orient and the occident, but to call it The Fundamentals of Brainwashing may be asking too much of the casual listener. Unless, of course, we are the butt of the author's little joke.
Wild Orchids is an album that's composed and orchestrated, rather than written and played, the intricate mosaic has to fit together perfectly for it to work. Hackett is a classical musician in all but era.
No-one, not even Steve Hackett, is suggesting that you could listen to Wild Orchids on a regular basis. However, as a means of lifting yourself out of the humdrum it's a very worthwhile and enjoyable exercise.
Michael Mee, Editor Hawick News, November 2006
Oscar Wilde reckoned that we were all in the gutter but that some of us were looking at the stars.
He could well have had former Genesis member Steve Hackett in mind because his latest solo album Metamorpheus is one of those pieces of music that raises your aspirations.
Metamorpheus isn't just the modern equivalent of classical music, it's classical music in waiting. Hopefully generations to come will think that this represents what we all listened to. It's a better legacy than much of the guff that goes around.
Right from the start, it's full of classical allusions that reach right back to Offenbach's Orpheus. However for such a weighty heritage this is a surprisingly warm and unpretentious piece. While most of the track titles sound like they were left over from Lord Of The Rings, the music itself is inviting and non-threatening. As an example of the sheer poetry of an acoustic guitar I doubt it could be bettered.
If you were looking for a home for Metamorpheus then it fits neatly alongside the rustic charm of Beethoven's Pastoral.
It would be a grey and dull world without the likes of Steve Hackett to lift both our spirits and our eyes. Niche market maybe but that doesn't alter the fact that it's wonderful.
Michael Mee
Hadacol - Better Than This - Checkered Past
Feel-good medicine from this Kansas City-based foursome, named after a potent alcohol elixir that sponsored Hank Williams' radio show in the late 1940s. Their powerhouse of a debut album stomps into a new century with all the vigour of the Rolling Stones colliding head-on with Nashville. From the opening track (No, It Don't Get) Better Than This, Hadacol's acoustic and slide guitars and 'tambourine' percussion have you in thrall. Next is Big Tornado; big country with clever high-strung acoustic touches which have you counting them in. The songs are written by brothers Fred and Greg Wickham, but not together, and producer Lou Whitney has done a fine job. It's a pleasure to listen to arrangements where there's enough space for some very pleasing musicianship, without over-indulgence and without losing the edge and the energy. If you like all that's best of our rock'n'roll tradition, but like it served up fresh and twangy: no, it don't get better than this!
Sue Cavendish
Collectively named after a state park in the Ozarks, these natives of Springfield, southwest Missouri, mix blistering driving rock with strangely sanctified four-part harmonies to produce a forthright, biting blend of music that you've not heard quite the like of before. Ha Ha Tonka have been around since 2004, originally under the name of Amsterband, and Buckle turns out to be just their second release. It's an impressive, if unduly brief set, recorded in an old church with a control booth where the pulpit had once been: the acappella Hangman comes over rather like a preachin' sermon, but the rest is dark, pounding, drum-driven rock with attitude, presenting a hard-edged view of the realities of socio-economic hardship, backwoods prejudices and drug abuse within the context of their own regional storytelling tradition. Caney Mountain is perhaps the best illustration of the band's unusual combination of musical elements, with energetic thrust punctuated by more vocal chanting, and You Lit Up The Night closes proceedings on a more restrained note, but tracks like Bully In The Pulpit and St. Nick On The Fourth In A Fervor convince the most, and on more than one level of invention. The dichotomy of all this can make it just a little difficult at times to know quite what to make of the band's overall vision, but the resulting music is almost always distinctly invigorating.
David Kidman October 2007
Tim Hain is described as a character, an eccentric and a public schoolboy of aristocratic descent. He is also two percent Jamaican and it said that he'd be arrested if he showed you which two percent. Bleggae is a fusion of blues and reggae, his two loves and two genres that fit because of their simplicity and their passion.
Little Willie John's Need Your Love So Bad is a pleasant start. This has been covered by many, most famously by Fleetwood Mac and Reggae Lift The Blues has some reggae shouting and an impromptu Lively Up Yourself - good fun and has Prince on drums, no not that one! Fine Time Child shows that blues and reggae can mix well and features Earl Linton on harmonica. An Old Blues Man Never Dies has a John Lee Hooker style opening before it drifts into a slow reggae treatment. Hain's lived in voice suits this well and to be honest, the song could fit into either genre. Somebody Turn On A Light is a highlight and like some of the others has been plundered from an earlier album. Pauline Henry makes a telling contribution on vocal. Welcome To Iraq is still as relevant today as it was when it was first released and is a wonderful critique on the intervention in Iraq.
If I Ever Get Home is another attack on the Yanks and displays Hain's clever use of the English language. The Wind Cries Mary is another old one but a cover this time. Jimi Hendrix, of course, and when you do one of his you have to be confident of your guitar playing. Hain comes through with flying colours, showing that he can handle his guitar as well as his talent for making a song his own. He can do straight reggae as well and Everybody's Talking To Themselves with chatting over a grinding reggae beat is testament to that. The biggest surprise about That's What The Blues Is All About is the fact that there is no reggae. This is a funky blues in an Albert King style and he manages to fit in pieces of other songs such as Tony Joe White's Steamy Windows. Feels So Nice is a straightforward blues with Hain turning is a voice of pure velvet. He finishes with One Man Went To Mojo, taken from the album of the same name. This is the perfect way to chill out so pour yourself a glass of whatever you fancy and settle down.
www.note-music.co.ukDavid Blue January 2008
Tim Hain unleashes his blend of Reggae and Blues on the nation via One Man Went To Mojo. He opens strongly with Fine Time Child, which is blues rock with reggae style middle eight. This features Errol Linton on harmonica and is a good introduction to the world of Tim Hain. There seems to be a number of Jimi Hendrix covers about today and Tim Has joined in with The Wind Cries Mary. As with many of his other tracks he gives it a reggae flavour and he has turned in a very good version. It's well produced and there's some excellent guitar work. There's another cover with Little Willie John's Need Your Love So Bad. This, of course, was made famous by Peter Green and Fleetwood Mac and, played in Hain's style, has turned into quite a happy song. Somebody Turn On The Light is great white boy reggae with Hain's voice sounding like velvet and Pauline Henry adding her not inconsiderable vocal talents. Paul Cox guests on If I Ever Get Home and his voice adds poignancy to this very strong anti-war roots song. Steven Stills is the next to be given the Tim Hain treatment in the guise of For What It's Worth. Another excellent song – you can't not like this guy. The good times continue with a rousing version of the well-known Madness Is Gladness and on Everybody's Talking To Themselves he shows that, although he's not Jamaican, he is the real deal.
Welcome To Iraq is, not surprisingly, another anti-war song and Tim manages to blend slide guitar and reggae very well. Clever slant on this one. The eponymous title track is just One Man Went To Mow by another name and, despite being well played and sung, is probably the weakest track on offer. Tim is back to the blues on Feels So Fine which swings along well enough with some good guitar and the spoken lyric is ok. An Old Bluesman Never Dies is performed in a John Lee Hooker style, appropriately enough as it was Zakiya Hooker who wrote it. Tim can't help himself however and flits off into his reggae rhythms. There's another classic in the shape of Misty Blue and this fits into Tim's style very well. Clea Llewellen provides the vocal and there's no doubting that Sunnysideup are a reggae band. Twenty Years Younger is a good, fun song and Albert King's Down Don't Bother Me is given a fine reggae/rock treatment. Tim's high standing shows when Tony Joe White appears as a co-writer of That's What The Blues Is All About and the result is a funky blues to rival the best. The penultimate track, I'm Just Getting Started, is a slight disappointment (compared to the rest of the set) and its blend of R&B/Soul just doesn't reach the standard. The final song is a live bonus in the shape of Put A Smile On Your Face and it gives a flavour of their potential. I can't wait to see this powerful performer.
David Blue, June 2006
Rachel, hailing from Ullapool in the inordinately beautiful north-west of Scotland, is a young and gifted exponent of the clarsach (Scottish harp) who's just released this light, airy yet satisfyingly substantial CD of music that well shows the instrument's strength as a solo instrument. For this reason, any accompaniment is kept to a very bare and very sensitive minimum (piano - Douglas Millar - on three of the disc's eleven tracks and flute - Peter Webster - on just one, the curiously-titled Chandni Chowk) - and yes, Rachel succeeds triumphantly in convincing me of the clarsach's capabilities. Rachel's source material is drawn from the traditions of both Ireland and Scotland (mirroring those of her parents), yet she brings to these idioms a delicately expressive quality of her own which is most attractive yet hard to pinpoint more exactly; perhaps it's something in the gentleness of her attack? Rachel also proudly showcases her own compositional abilities with a handful of her own tunes including the delightful, breezy jig Starry-eyed Lads and the CD's title track which has already a firm favourite among harp players! All in all, this is an eminently tasteful, refreshing and subtly uplifting album, not in the least tedious or unduly esoteric. Even though the dominant mode is soft-focus, there's grit in Rachel's playing too. Yes, the disc's a delight from start to finish, and beautifully recorded too by the way; although of course it helps if you're not immune to instrumental charms of the tenderly plucked variety! I'll not harp on, then - but equally, don't let it pass you by.
David Kidman
www.halfway.co.au
www.myspace.com/halfwaycountry
Michael Mee January 2007
Farewell To The Fainthearted is the album you didn't know you had to have until you heard it.
The seven members of Halfway, including the Dublin born brothers Noel and Liam Fitzpatrick have taken Americana, alt country, country rock, or whatever else you want to call it, back to the wrong side of the tracks. These are songs about lives lived against a backdrop of rusted, broken trucks, dirt roads and stray dogs.
Farewell To The Fainthearted is a gritty, no frills slice of realism, set to unforgiving guitars played with an energy and belief that can only come from personal experience. Whilst tracks like Get Gone and Compromise For A Country Girl are anything but compromises, Halfway manages to avoid presenting Farewell To The Fainthearted as either bleak or depressing.
The rock n roll simmers and bubbles and its country influence, largely courtesy of the Fitzpatrick brothers, hasn't been softened by city living. But what Farewell To The Fainthearted does, almost imperceptibly, is draw the listener into its web. In real life, love is never clean cut and there's a kick in the teeth lurking round every corner for all of us.
Halfway play the soundtrack to an imperfect world. However in the midst of Farwell To The Fainthearted lies Miles and Miles Of Love, a song so tender that it appears that the band must have been caught in an unguarded moment revealing their gentle side. It's made all the more poignant because it seems so isolated.
Farwell To The Fainthearted is a complete and self-contained album, nothing on it requires anything that the band and a small and select group of guests can't supply. It's stuffed with catchy, layered melodies carrying beautifully written and constructed lyrics but above all it generates its own heat. Even the accursed 'hidden' track works well, Lowell George's Willin takes the band from its native Australia and plants it firmly in its spiritual home, southern USA. Halfway? Not a bit of it this is a band that's already there.
Michael Mee
It don't seem any time at all (tho' it must be nearer ten years) since my first encounter with the Yorkshire-based Hall Brothers (aka Nick and Duncan Hall), at Otley Folk Festival (OK, where else?!), where I was impressed by these Young Turks who had real attitude and a hefty vocal, guitaristic and writing prowess, a distinct feel for the tradition, remarkably good taste in covers and a keen grasp of showmanship (if then bordering on the showoff!). Over the intervening years they've never disappointed, but they've also continually developed their craft, greatly helped by fellow-muso John Carey in particular (to whom the Halls' latest CD, on around half of which he sports his trademark violin, is dedicated). Songs From The Shore is definitely the Halls' best recording yet, and sensibly majors mostly on acoustic-roots-rock rather than folk, albeit that it sets off with a cracking, full-tilt rendition of Child Ballad No 243 (aka House Carpenter). The remainder comprises self-penned material, six songs by each of the brothers - and mighty fine they are too, displaying a bold maturity and an increasingly literate expressiveness. Many of the songs just cry out to be covered, stuff that wouldn't disgrace a Show Of Hands or latterday Fairport album methinks, with a grand sense of melodic construction and proportion that shows how much they've learnt from their peers. And you're also likely to have fun, I'll bet, spotting the sneaky, what you might term "closet" folky, references, idiomatic twists and quirks that betray the brothers' formative influences but in a thoroughly nice way (like Another Turning Day's rippling Thompsonesque guitar undertow, and Shanty's sturdy seadog structure). The album's title reflects a certain inclination towards "watery" or nautical metaphor, and gives the CD an extra level of artistic unity alongside other purely musical elements such as the Halls' superb acoustic playing and their signature excellent solo and harmony vocal work which is still is there in abundance as you'd expect if you've heard their previous work. The surprise for some will be that at the other end of the scale from the brothers' brand of delicate modern acoustic-based balladry several tracks also have a rather harder, kickass edge with full and effective use of electric guitar with drumkit (courtesy of the aptly-named Nic Shipp) high up there in the mix. And bloody good they all sound too! Oh, and any violin duties not undertaken by John Carey are beautifully fulfilled by Hannah Bunyan; all other instrumental parts are played by the Halls themselves, naturally. The whole album has a great live vibe to it, and the recording's clean and positive (cheers, Andy Bell of Spike Productions). My verdict, then – hell, this is a supremely "shore-footed" product, lads, and pretty much a towering achievement!
David Kidman
Nick and Duncan, alias The Hall Brothers, have been one of the most vibrant acts on the West Yorkshire folk fringe scene in particular over the past decade or so, though latterly their live appearances have been at a premium while Duncan has been away at college researching for his doctorate. The Brothers' sound has always been accessible, charming and highly distinctive, the hallmark (sorry!) being luscious and thoughtfully managed vocal harmonies set to superlatively assured and seriously nifty guitar playing. Their first release (in 1995) was a cassette (No Place On Earth), which like the new album consisted almost entirely of the brothers' own compositions. The melodic contours of their songs inhabit what might loosely be branded the "modern acoustic" idiom, strongly influenced by such luminaries as Show Of Hands and Ralph McTell and latter-day Fairport - but not in any derivative sense, I hasten to add. Generally speaking, the songs on that early cassette embodied a lightly pensive mood, deeper emotions merely reflected in halcyon waters perhaps, whereas the songs on Time And Tragedy reflect that title extremely aptly, for although the musical idiom and overall sound may not have changed a lot, there's now a more mature edge to the writing, a realism born of experience of life outwith and beyond the hallowed walls of university (dare I say it?!). Strong evidence of this comes in songs that deal intelligently, knowingly and unsentimentally with lost love, like the specially poignant It Won't Be Tonight and Curtain Call (the latter could almost be a lost Clive Gregson opus!, as could the affectionate vignette Mercury Row, which takes its inspiration from a local Otley thoroughfare). The other integral element of the brothers' writing - humour - isn't missing either (High Time You Had Your Heart Broken displays all the caustic put-down wit of Richard Thompson, whose Time To Ring Some Changes it inescapably put me in mind of, albeit more in terms of form than content, while The Ballad Of Marge And Cliff is one of those fun nostalgia story-songs that effortlessly transcends its status as perennial live favourite to accord repeated plays.
Nick hasn't lost his respect for the tradition though - witness the sly but affectionate sidelong slant of Where's Robin Hood? for example - whereas I'd pay the best possible tribute to Duncan's two settings of texts he unearthed while conducting his research into music of the British Labour Movement between the wars, for they sound so authentic they might easily pass for traditional. In any case, you could argue that Nick and Duncan both write firmly in the "new tradition" of those artists I mentioned above. So far I've concentrated on the excellent songwriting on this album, but I must mention the brothers' increasingly mature singing, retaining both that characteristic tonal smoothness and the gutsy power-edge of acoustic folk-rock, while increasingly secure and considered both in inflection and expression of meaning. And last but certainly not least, I must shower heaps of credit on producer John Carey, whose exceptional instrumental skills (violin, viola, melodeon, harp) have really enhanced the Halls' effortlessly intertwining guitar lines with a superbly sympathetic supporting backdrop. This album has been worth the six-year wait!
David Kidman
Nottingham-based songwriter Jezz made quite an impression on me when I reviewed his debut album Smalltown three years ago, and the followup is another confident collection of self-penned songs, on which Jezz's commanding vocal presence is if anything even more assured than on Smalltown. That debut veered quite a bit stylistically, with a small number of ragtimey tracks that didn't quite fit into the scheme of things; When The Music Is Over, although still inhabiting a wide stylistic universe, is a more coherent set altogether, with none of the tracks seeming out of place. Lyric-wise, Jezz's writing has developed further, with that quality of enigmatic yearning I'd noted on Smalltown now even more pronounced. The opener Second Chance and the troubadour-folk Taking Shelter are gently reflective, whereas songs like Under My Skin and Love You In The Head take a more defiant view of love and romance. But once again it's the core value of thoughtfulness, both in song content and construction and musical arrangement, that sets Jezz apart from so many of his contemporaries among the young British singer-songwriters. And there's still a lot of different things going on musically, with a good deal of modern Americana influences permeating his own brand of electric folk troubadour music. There's a weary dusty rootsy backporch feel to Weighed Down, whereas When I'm Dead inhabits a world and mood close to the brooding electric textures of Quicksilver Messenger Service. Song Of Forever is a kind of folky parting-song, with a canny use of a Play the fife lowly refrain and all the more effective for being sparsely scored, whereas the more full-band setting of Love You In The Head recalls the euphoric early-electric Dylan and Living Inside is almost pure Notting Hillbillies. Then, Meadow By The Sea sublimates ragtime-jazz influences into something attractively Donovanish in its almost idealistic simplicity. Jezz once again has the benefit of some fine backing musicians; looming largest are Andy Hill (guitars, bass), Nick Acons (fiddle), Ed Acons (cello) and Tom Parratt (drums), and Deb Sandland contributes some sublime backing vocals to Progress and Ocean (the latter song also blessed with a well-judged string arrangement). Jezz has cause to be very proud indeed of this fine new collection, which makes an immediate impact (and it sounds even better after three or four plays).
David Kidman
Although Jezz hails from Cambridge, he's best known on the local folk and acoustic club scene of Nottingham, where he moved in the 80s. Bravely, his début album consists entirely of his own compositions, and these mark him out as (at his best) a striking songwriting talent. As such, he's been endorsed by Pete Morton, whom he's supported on tour. Jezz's biog also lists him as having contributed to an album called The Songmakers Project (which featured Billy Bragg, Bert Jansch, Eric Bibb and Emily Slade among others), but Smalltown is the first I'd heard of Jezz, and on this evidence I sure hope to hear more. Jezz has an assured and vital presence both vocally and instrumentally, as well as a telling confidence in his own lyrical abilities, and the excellent recorded quality of the self-co-produced Smalltown brings these qualities out to perfection. Some accompanying musicians are used sparingly on a mere handful of tracks, but they in no measure detract from Jezz's own distinctive personality. Jezz's singing style is attractively husky, almost casual at times yet with a compelling approach to phrasing and onward momentum that never allows your attention to drift; surprisingly, as on Favourite Girl, I found myself detecting shades of Donovan in the precision of his delivery, but without the latter's feyness. Musically, most of the album is gently powerful and thoughtful, partly influenced by folk tradition and partly by the contemporary acoustic troubadours. Seven Days had me visualising Nick Drake accompanied by Davy Graham, and Baxter's Mines seemed a credible contemporary take on the traditional Blackleg Miner, from which it clearly derives both structure and inspiration. Fortune's Waters is a beautiful (if maybe Dylanesque, at least in that man's more traditional mode) lonesome traveller's ballad, while Secret Heart has a similarly engimatic, yearning simplicity that recalls vintage Michael Chapman, and Closer To You has all the ramblin' wistful bluesiness of Chris Smither or perhaps even Mark Knopfler. The "odd tracks out" inhabit an altogether jauntier bluesy-ragtime groove which I more quickly tired of in comparison (halfway through track 7 in fact) and Prescription Blues, which owes much to the Wizz Jones school of prime acoustic bluesiness; in retrospect, perhaps the title track oughtn't to have been placed right at the start of the CD, since it gives a misleading impression of the musical idiom of the remainder. Whatever though, this is still a really very impressive set of songs, which should propel Jezz straight into the front rank within the consciousness of like-minded discerning listeners; in truth, I've played it a hell of a lot in the month since it arrived (which explains/excuses my delay in getting this review in!).
David Kidman
This master melodeonist from Norfolk is a real character with a quirky and individual style and a determinedly uncompromising outlook on life. And a brilliant cartoonist, by the by (see the album's cover!). Stubbornly but entirely legitimately, Tony revels in the sound of his antique Hohner melodeons with their noisy key-clicking - which as far as I'm concerned gives his recordings a special appeal, and my ears at any rate soon grow accustomed to it! And yes, it's true, there is no instrumental multitracking whatsoever on this disc, for one of the features of Tony's playing is his ability to sound like two people are each playing a melody line at the same time. This is but one element of the wide appeal of his performances: another is his enthusiastic embracing of an eclectic range of material, all of which he carries off with acute flair. Tony shares with Brian Peters and John Kirkpatrick (to name but two) the distinction of being an able-fingered squeezer who can credibly sequence The Abbotts Bromley Horn Dance, waltzes both lovely and lively, some ragtime, a Jimmy Shand piece, a Howard Keel showtune and even a bizarrely soulful rendition of Strange Fruit (yes, the very song Billie Holliday made famous) - and do them all justice. Not to mention that inimitable Norfolk accent and ripe sense of humour on his own Down On The Hard (careful!), The Haddock Song (the finest - and that's of-fishial!) and the quite touching Binder Twyne, and, purely instrumentally - probably best of all (or should I say "hall"?!) - his own Beccles Stomp, a deliciously bluesy New Orleans-style number. Only one puzzle remains: Tony's defiant but slightly self-deprecating booklet notes term his Enigma Of The Southwold Tide "the most boring song ever written" - no way! This whole CD is a totally honest, proud and immensely enjoyable little gem full of goonishly-delightful moments, to whom no-one in their right mind should fitfully admonish "Shut up Beccles!"
David Kidman August 2008
A real historical artefact, this, as it contains some long-thought-lost recordings which have recently surfaced, and whose provenance requires a little explanation. If last year you purchased the recently-republished Halliard: Broadside Songs book you'll have learned that the Halliard (=Dave Moran, Nic Jones and Nigel Paterson) had in 1968, as part of their original deal with Saga Recordings, been permitted to record demos of 15 English broadsides in readiness for a projected future release. Although Dave had kept the master tape safe, shortly afterwards the Halliard itself were no more; that tape therefore lay gathering dust, coming to light again only last year during a house clearance. The recordings have now been remastered by John Bushby, taming the original "artificial" stereo image, and they now sound pretty good for their time. And for the most part, the singing and playing therein has a tremendous vitality. Of the 15 tracks, ten comprise settings of the original broadsides to tunes by Nic and/or Dave, and excellent these are too, not in the least dated. All are interesting at the very least, and some - for example Nic's intriguing and unusual new melody for Death Of Nelson, the tricky metre of his Bold Captain Grant, the gentle resignation of Sad Lamentation Of John Kington (somewhat reminiscent of Paul Simon!), and Dave's lusty Turpin's Bonny Black Bess and With Wellington We'll Go - make for particularly satisfying listening. The remaining five of the 1968 tracks are renditions of songs which fitted the character of the urban broadside - and, typically, the overall theme of the collection, in that all the songs deal with the heroic or the villainous. This latter category includes Wild Colonial Boy, Ballad Of Dick Turpin, Patrick McCaffery and (Ewan MacColl's) Ballad Of Timothy Evans. The disc's unofficial "theme" provides a ready-made excuse for it to lead off with a set of what we now recognise as better-known material, but this may be a mistake as I feel the first four of these are the least successful in terms of the treatments (or it may be, of course, that the songs are over-familiar or that I just don't respond to the songs themselves). Finally, as an addendum to the 15 tracks from that 1968 tape, The Last Goodnight! presents three tracks recorded earlier this year: one (Rakish Young Fellow) is sung by Nic with Graham Hodge playing the guitar accompaniment, and the remaining two are sung by Dave with John and Malcolm Bushby accompanying. These final three tracks complete the available audio versions of the entire canon of broadsides featured in the aforementioned book. All told, this is an essential acquisition for admirers of Nic Jones and the Halliard alike, with honest and vital performances that transcend mere historical-artefact value.
David Kidman November 2006
Broadside Songs Of The Halliard (Mollie Music)
The Halliard, you may recall, was a trio (Nic Jones, Dave Moran and Nigel Paterson) who composed and sang some of the great songs of the 60s Folk Revival, many of which have since become part of the oral tradition; in 1968 they recorded, for Broadside Records of Wolverhampton, an LP of Broadside Songs.
This brand new publication reviving the Halliard name takes pride of place in the review section this issue, as for many it will be an essential acquisition. It takes the form of an A4 songbook with companion CD. The book contains 30 broadsides set to tunes composed by Nic and Dave (together with an instrumental piece by Nic with Nigel). The companion near-hour-long CD contains 17 tracks (16 songs and the aforementioned instrumental piece, all appearing in the book itself), ten of which are new (2005) recordings (recorded and mixed over 12,000 miles - for Dave now lives and works in Hobart, Tasmania!) on which all three men sing, Nigel played mandolin and recorder and Nic's son Joseph played guitar (thus keeping most of the recording in the Halliard "family"). Nigel's current musical partners-in-crime Ralph Jordan and John Dipper were also heavily involved, largely in the mastering and production of the recordings, while the whole project has been ably masterminded by Nic's wife Julia. And it's a hell of an achievement too, notwithstanding its scholarly, historical and yes, nostalgic importance.
So now to deal with the individual elements of the package. First the book: well it's a handsome volume, which presents the songs in what one might call standard desirable format, one song per page, with stave notation for tune and first verse and/or chorus and remaining verse texts below, each song further illuminated by an original illustration. Inserted into the middle of the book, on coloured paper, is the full transcription (six pages, plus two of notes) of the tune Tae The Weavers Gin Ye Go. The songs are preceded by a useful "short historie of the Halliard" penned by Dave, which sets the record straight once and for all on some long-and-hard-disputed myths (such as the real story behind the creation of the tune to Boys Of Bedlam!) and a discourse (by Nic and Dave) on singing broadside songs, then succeeded by notes on the songs (Dave), and brief articles on accompanying (Nigel) then transcribing the songs (John Bushby). The typefaces chosen are just right, clear and readable, and layout is attractive and easy on the eye. My only criticism on the book's presentation is that the songs are not given in the same order as on the companion CD, which would have made more sense rather than necessitating reference to the index of contents each time.
Moving on to the CD then: what more can one say except that these are honest and straightforward performances which really do bring the broadside songs to life. They're very much in the robust, perfectly accessible style that has been accepted and used as a kind of template ever since (and which the Halliard had found already in practice around the clubs when they first went out to tour the material!), although it's fair to say that by today's more eclectic standards it might be seen as somewhat formalised. In truth however, it hasn't really dated - at least, in the sense that you can still hear many club singers performing songs such as Calico Printer's Clerk and Lancashire Lads in the "approved" style heard on this CD, so much so that it might appear that the 30-odd intervening years have seen little appreciable change in "popular-folk" tastes or performance style. Whatever your take on that issue, it's clear that the quality of the singing and playing on the CD is consistent between the eras and (whether modern or original recording) holds up just fine. And of course it's good to hear Nic singing again; that in itself represents considerable progress and should not be underestimated.
Although the book does not precisely differentiate the temporal provenance of the individual tracks, I'd guess that the first seven are those taken from the original 1968 master; and aside from some occasional minor waverings in pitch and a small mastering blip that occurs around twenty seconds before the end of track 6 (A Thousand Miles Away), the engineers have done a splendid job and the recordings' age is only betrayed by an intermittent slight flakiness in timbre of the instrumental accompaniments on these tracks - certainly not worth worrying about in any way. I should by now have written enough to convince you that this fine publication is very much worth having; it's very reasonably priced too, at only £25 (plus £1.50 for UK P&P), available either from Mollie Music, 52 Newland Park Drive, York YO10 3HP or
www.nicjones.net
www.fishrecords.co.uk
David Kidman
Kieran Halpin - A Box Of Words And Tunes (SOS Records)
Key singer-songwriter Kieran's latest album is at once a further persuasive demonstration of his highly individual craft and, it turns out, a memorial to one of his most cherished long-term touring partners, the brilliant guitarist Chris Jones, who tragically died of cancer only a couple of months ago (aged just 46). The CD contains 12 songs, 11 of which are new to record for Kieran (including one - Simple - written for, but omitted from, the 1999 album Jangle, and another - Walk Like A Champion - written for John Wright for his album Songdance). These new songs were written over the period from June 2003 through to this very midsummer, and each one carries the usual Kieran Halpin trademarks - intensely strong and sometimes uncomfortable imagery blending the worldly with the personal, shot through with an acute contemporary resonance and given accessible, driven musical settings, often married to a memorably staccato rhythm with a relentless, repetitive element that accentuates the potent wordsmithery and ensures unforgettability, and performed in Kieran's unmistakable gritty voice. In other words, if you know Kieran's personal style you'll appreciate that each song is absolutely Kieran and couldn't have been written by anyone else. And some of them must rank among his best to date - after only three plays I'd already singled out Letter To America, Singing Boots and The Bigger Picture ... - but there's not a weak cut here at all. The 12th song on the CD is a new (much slower-paced) reworking of All The Answers, quite different emotionally - more wistful and reflective born out of the harshnesses of experience. This, like many other songs here, utilises Anth Kaley's rippling, highly musical piano playing as a prominent element in its accompaniment; elsewhere, this classy Blue Moon production brings in excellent instrumental support from the aforementioned Chris Jones as well as Maart Allcock (bass), Yogi Jockusch (percussion) and Christine Hanson (cello), while Sally Barker contributes backing vocals to a few songs. Kieran never disappoints, and A Box Of Words And Tunes is a worthy addition to his canon.
David Kidman
David Kidman
Hot on the heels of Kieran's latest live album with Chris Jones (Moving Air), comes another new solo record – well, solo in box credit rather than in actuality, for Kieran's backed therein by long-term collaborator Maartin Allcock (does that man ever rest?!) as well as the aforementioned Chris Jones, with Yogi Jockusch (percussion), also with Sally Barker on occasional backing vocals. This batch of 11 new songs covers familiar ground for those who are attuned to Kieran's writing style, and Kieran's distinctive traits are all there – the driving guitar rhythms, the thrusting vocals, the honest, direct lyrics that make their point as much through reflection and repetition as through thematic development, and not through narrative. The album's title signifies Kieran's eternal optimism in the face of heartache and adversity, always bouncing back, yet humbly finding solace in the sharing of emotions. In this respect, the tender assurance of Making Up The Miles is patently the latest in a long line of similarly powerful songs that have graced Kieran's albums over his career, but it doesn't feel like he's just recycling, for there's a note of pain in there too, a bleak edge to the optimism here as on several other recent songs, an edge which Kieran's grittily uncompromising, lived-in, world-weary yet undyingly passionate delivery is so very successful at conveying. However, Kieran recognises that there's also an inherent beauty within the regret, notwithstanding all the acknowledged harshness of realism, and this is poignantly addressed in Elmo's Garden and the movingly simple It's All For Love. Perhaps the only (slightly) jarring note, especially after several plays, is the closing track, Where Were You?, which seems to carry the tried-and-tested mantra approach just a little too far and the rhetoric tends to lose its initial impact (not that I'd disagree with the basic argument). If you've got used to hearing these songs performed on Kieran's solo gigs through the past months, then the mellower, more fully-clothed recordings on this album should still not disappoint, for the arrangements are both pretty varied and knowingly contemporary. The musical idiom is unmistakably Kieran Halpin, as are the melodic contours, structures and chord progressions, but I wouldn't want it any other way. And the packaging (attractive lyric-filled booklet and all) is of Kieran's usual high standard. Kieran hasn't let me down yet, and Back Smiling Again shows no signs of him doing so in the future – so neither should Kieran's fans hesitate to purchase this album. (www.kieranhalpin.com) (This review is also destined to appear in Folk Roundabout, issue 127.)
David Kidman
(This review is destined to appear in Folk Roundabout magazine, issue 127.)
The first of two new releases from Kieran this year is a live album recorded at various British venues in November of last year during his tour with guitarist Chris Jones. Kieran and Chris had released an earlier live duo album back in 1996 (Glory Dayz), which was notable for its winning combination of exceptionally strong songs and playing that was vivid and fiery yet very subtle. Moving Air takes the two's working relationship a stage further in accomplishment, with some mightily beautiful intricacies of texture and harmonics woven in among the power chords - a combination that suits Kieran's songs down to the ground.
The album's title proves extremely accurate - play it loud and you can feel the air move, it positively shimmers in the heat haze of the cascading, rippling strings, and the recording perfectly conveys the intensity of the live experience. The music is gutsy, honest and uncompromising, with Kieran's distinctive, gravelly vocal as compelling as ever; it's ostensibly quite abrasive, but Kieran's always proved himself capable of finer vocal shadings too, as on the achingly beautiful Angel Of Paradise and when he effectively revisits an earlier song like No Turning Back (here given a thoughtful new slant). On the most recent song here (Good Reason), Chris shares vocal duties, though while proving himself adequate to the task his quiet tones form almost too much of a contrast with Kieran's own matchless, forceful delivery.
The majority of the songs on this new album don't duplicate Kieran's earlier live releases, and they range over a wide timescale, emphasising the sheer consistency of his world-vision over his long career. Even on those songs which have appeared before on his live albums, Kieran always manages to find something new to say, while his most recent writing shows him still developing his themes and concerns in a credibly contemporary fashion. And I've already enthused about the wonderfully complementary guitar work of Kieran and Chris, whose contrasting styles that coexist admirably yet also spark each other to fine new expressive heights.
David Kidman
Neil Halstead - Sleeping On Roads (4AD)
Gestating over two years, the solo debut from the lead singer of Mojave 3 isn't exactly any radical musical departure from the day job. Which means more Nick Drake infused delicately miserable country-folk, pretty tunes and hushed lazy vocals. Their bare acoustic guitar bones fleshed out with banjo, cello, trumpet and keyboards, it's all very pleasant stuff, the Leone touches to Driving With Bert especially attractive with the gently rolling leafy mood of Two Stones In My Pocket, the slowly swelling guitar-borne dream of flying free that's See You On Rooftops and six minute reverie Dreamed I Saw Soldiers the most obvious highlights. But with no obvious personal agenda to the songs themselves and no sense of exploring musical directions frustrated by the band confines, it doesn't really seem to have any reason for its existence other than proving he could do it.
Mike Davies
Hamell on Trial - Tough Love (Righteous Babe)
Hamell on Trial is not for you if you prefer your music gentle and singer-songwritery. You are excused and we'll see you later...
OK, now they've gone and we can get down to Ed Hamell's latest collection of acoustic-powered, folk-punk genius. It's wild, funny as hell with lyrics that slice like a knife at a crime scene. What you get is a guy with big opinions, stories from which to make film scripts and a lot of acoustic strumming over inspired percussion. Some of his stories are true (Downs, his recovery from a near-death car accident with the aid of a pharmacy of morphine and derivatives), or he's the voice of an angry God (Don't Kill, 'what part of Thou Shalt Not Kill don't you understand?'), and of course he's a righteous ranter against those sell-out rock stars and politicians with their mediocrity and loss of integrity (Halfway).
Surreal at times and poking fun or the finger at a multitude of targets, there's a hilarious bizarre internet romance (First Date), a small tale of blackmail and a gang rap (Dear Peter, When Destiny Calls), with guns accenting various verses - not literally - and Hamell firing words of warning (There Is A God), and - maybe literally - hitting dustbin lids (Tough Love)! But there's angst-free beauty and love in an after-life (Hail), the here and now (Everything & Nothing) and the final lullaby to his baby son Detroit.
Ani DiFranco joins him (All That Was Said, 95 South, A Little Concerned That's All, Worry Wart). No sweet harmonising, she does a fine job in edgily keeping up with the Hamell whirlwind. He's supported her on tour and she's extended her support for him by signing him to her Righteous Babe label.
Tough Love is a Triumph. No 'singing between the lines', Hamell comes at you with a punch and this one is his best right hook. Straight into my pile of Best Albums of the Year.
Sue Cavendish
Hamell on Trial - Choochtown (Evangeline)
Have you ever heard an acoustic guitarist wreck his PA? Astonishing one-man-tornado Hamell on Trial did at the Borderline, London, in August. Hamell is a showman who shocks. He's a wild weapon of communication - an urban folk-punkster, a thrash-rocker who fires songs at you which are not exactly hot on forgiveness and compassion. He strums like a man possessed, he's outrageously funny and utterly compelling.
Brooklyn-based Hamell's repertoire is death, guns, race-relations, murder, prison, drugs, twisted love and sex; if it's x-rated and politically incorrect, Hamell has a wicked and witty tale to tell, talking-blues/rap style. Choochtown feels very 'live' though some tracks are supplemented by drums, bass, electric guitar, trumpet and samples.
Let's face it, this isn't sensitive stuff, so if you in the mood for something pretty and singer-songwritery, this one isn't for you. On the other hand, if you like your songs honest, bad and bloody - and you think Bob Dylan, Lou Reed or Loudon Wainwright are a little tame these days, Hamell's your guy. This man is brilliant and he's at The Borderline again on November 2nd.
Finally, a joke from Hamell's on-stage, mostly unrepeatable banter, "What has four legs and an arm?" "A Rottweiller!"
www.hamellontrial.com
www.evangeline.co.uk
www.borderline.co.uk
Sue Cavendish
Andy Hamill - Bee For Bass (Emu)
As double bassist for hire Hamill's worked with a diverse array of names, from Nitin Sawhney, Luke Vibert and Theo Travis to LTJ Bukem, 4 Hero and Carleen Anderson. As Rebecca Hollweg's other half, he also played on and produced her album June Babies. Now he's finally made his own and, not surprisingly, several friends dropped by to return the favour. Designed to showcase his collaborator's songwriting talents, while Dear Love's Hollweg/Jeb Loy Nichols duet is soulful roots, the album's primarily coloured in various hues of jazz, ranging from Shea Segar's sensual smoky Ricki Lee Jones style Camel's Back through 4 Hero/The Roots singer Ursula with Four Minutes of Fun, a spoken jazz poem set to upright bass, flute and tabla and scat vocalist Anita Wardell tackling Annie Ross/Art Farmer Farmer's Market while her own Why Do You Cry? gets a sparse 3am cellar touch from Trudy Kerr to Kenny Young taking on a percussion heavy reading of Hollweg's Getting On and sax man Chris Bowden improvising an arrangement of his own instrumental Mothers And Daughters Now Mothers.
Elsewhere Carleen Anderson slow burns in a Billie H stylee on Falling, a tune by double bassist Harvie Swartz to words by Hollweg with Tony Woods on alto while, underlining the swapfest relay race nature of the album, Who Chooses The Seasons?, a song she duets on Omar's album Music, is handled here by him and Valerie Etienne, and Ben Castle, who produced Anderson's Alberta's Granddaughter album turns up to provide bass clarinet on Hamill's mutant tango Sally Tomato.
There's quirkiness too. Tony Penultimate puts his ukulele to one side to sing the mock cabaret comic song This Was Your Life (featuring a choir of Hollwegs and Andy's mom Thelma) and, just to bend everything out of shape, The Planet Formerly Known As Moon is a surreal soiree in the David Lynch lounge with Mark Murphy on spoken vocals, Wardell on kazoo and Seger tap dancing. It takes a few listens, but it sneaks into the bloodstream. And it goes without saying double bass aficionados should purchase forthwith.
Mike Davies
The quite-newly-launched Cherry Red subsidiary label Esoteric is currently doing a splendid job of reissuing all the albums of celebrated songwriter (Josephine) Claire Hamill, who was also quite recently hailed by Record Collector mag as "the finest vocalist you've never heard" (yes, I do like the presumptive eloquence of that description!). As a taster, though, comes The Minor Fall, The Major Lift, a handsome two-disc retrospective compilation covering virtually the whole of Claire's career to date (1971 to 2005) and spanning the records she made for Island, Konk, Beggar's Banquet, Coda and finally her own label. If I'm totally honest, I don't entirely connect with some of the prog and then New Age modes with which Claire became engaged from the late 70s through to the late 80s, a blandness too far on occasion for me perhaps, but the sample tracks from the albums made during that period encapsulate what she was doing pretty well. In all, it's actually a very sensibly programmed compilation, and certainly whets the appetite for the forthcoming projected complete reissues of all the individual albums over the next year or so and prompts a re-evaluation on my part. And even Claire's staunchest fans will probably not own all of those albums!
So to those issued thus far... One House Left Standing was the product of the ingenuous Claire's signing with Island at age 16, and ambitiously showcased her nascent songwriting and her enviably pure and uncannily cultured singing voice on an unexpectedly wide-ranging set of songs, mainly penned by Claire herself (some with her then-boyfriend Mike Coles). The record started out stylishly, with the kittenish Dixieland swing of Baseball Blues (whoa, what an opener!) and moved through the assured, stately chamber-folk of The Man Who Cannot See Tomorrow's Sunshine, The River Song and the chanson-like Where Are Your Smiles At?, also taking in the classic Jon Mitchell song Urge For Going, on which Terry Reid was drafted in to play guitar (other guests commandeered by Chris Blackwell for the sessions included John Martyn, David Lindley, Paul Buckmaster, Rabbit Bundrick and Free's drummer Simon Kirke). It's a persuasive set that wears very well indeed, and its ten tracks are topped up with two bonus cuts, the lengthy and intense single B-side Alice In The Streets Of Darlington and a cutglass cover of Lindisfarne's Meet Me On The Corner featuring Gerry Rafferty and Stealer's Wheel as backing musicians.
1973's followup, October, was an even more mature record, astonishingly so for someone of Claire's relatively tender years; I guess you could say that while in one respect consolidating Claire's debut it was a little more orthodox in basic sound and approach, possibly due to the deployment of a more consistent (although to my ears a little too consistent) backing crew. A more pronounced Joni Mitchell influence also seemed to be present, especially in the melodic contours of songs like To The Stars. Produced by Paul Samwell Smith, October incorporated backing by Cat Stevens' band of the time (Jean Roussel, Pat Donaldson and Gerry Conway) and the American trio Smith, Perkins and Smith (whom Island had just signed). There are some sensitive string arrangements too (courtesy of Nick Harrison), and the final track Peaceful was even recorded alfresco in the cold in the middle of the night! Highlights of this generally strong set of songs have to be the pounding Speedbreaker, the profoundly touching I Don't Get Any Older, the tenderly beautiful Warrior Of The Water and the enigmatic The Artist. The odd-track-out is a quite strident cover of Jimmy Reed's Baby What's Wrong (With You) which, well done though it is, breaks the flow of the album's original second side somewhat. Sadly, there are no bonus tracks with this reissue - but, as with One House..., the booklet contains a brand new reminiscence by Claire herself which throws further light on the songs and the circumstances of the recording.
The third of the reissued albums, Voices, propels us forward 12 years to 1985, by which time much water had flown under Claire's musical bridge. At that time, Claire was settled and married, and had just supported Rick Wakeman on a national tour. At the instigation of her husband Nick, Claire dipped her tentative toes into the then-nascent New Age genre, recording a whole album based around the concept of a vocal interpretation of the changing seasons. Using then-pioneering layering techniques to create a thick, ethereal soundscape from her own extraordinary vocal performances, Voices proved a startlingly original record which genuinely broadened musical horizons, astounding listeners and defying preconceptions of what might "sell". Heard now, it seems a very-80s artefact, rather akin to Kate Bush without the outlandish eccentricities I thought, and definitely a precursor of what's now regarded as the Enya sound especially in its wash of swooning, shifting vocal colours - but it doesn't sound dated in the way that much 80s music does, and it contains some inspiring and uplifting composition. From the vantage point of two decades on, it's easy to underestimate how inventive and original this music was back in the mid-80s, and this repackage allows us to reassess its magic in all its aural splendour.
The fourth album to be reissued in this series, Love In The Afternoon, dates from 1988, a time when Claire was on a creative roll after the massive success of the Voices album. It's a collection of songs without an overall concept, and although it doesn't suffer from disunity in that sense and there are some fine songs among its nine tracks it still doesn't quite satisfy as an entirety. Trees, Japanese Lullaby and to some extent Glastonbury and the title track are to some extent all style-defining within Claire's later output, but the album's standout is probably Beauty Of England (which is drawn from an aborted concept album Domesday, about the Battle Of Hastings). Love In The Afternoon shares with many albums of its time a distinctly 80s synth-dominated backing, which now makes it sound quite dated (more so than Voices), and this dilutes the impact of Claire's writing somewhat for me. It would be interesting to hear some of these songs with a less elaborate textural backdrop.
David Kidman August 2008
Best known for a string of albums on Island Records in the early seventies, Middlesborough vocalist Claire Hamill has never stuck rigidly to one formula, reinventing herself along the way as New-Age songstress, occasional rock-chick singer with Wishbone Ash and conceiving the remarkable 'Voices' album, which featured multi-layered arrangements of Claire's erm, voice!
Released in 2004, her most recent studio album sees Claire return to the comparative comfort zone of singer-songwriter mode, yet several of the songs in this collection stand comfortably alongside the best of her earlier work; the jazz-tinged 'Beautiful Moon' featuring the moody trumpet of Duncan Mackay, a song which would not sound out of place on a record by Madeleine Peyroux or Diana Krall and the bright 'In the Leaves of the Park', as crisp and clear as a brisk Autumn walk.
Claire obviously has a keen ear for a cover and her little-girl-lost vocals are perfectly suited to 'Blue' from the pen of McAlmont and Butler. We also get another chance to hear the beautiful 'You Take My Breath Away', re-recorded due to the renewed interest in her work largely thanks to the surprise discovery of a recorded version of Claire's song by the late Eva Cassidy.
There is an air of melancholy throughout much of this album, even on the uptempo 'Mr Wonderful', but it is an emotion that Claire handles better than most. On the closing track, 'Singer', she proclaims "where did you go, I used to buy your records many years ago." Fortunately for us, Ms Hamill has never really been away - and Claire, if you are contemplating another change of direction, may I suggest a late-night jazz collection.
Chris Groom February 2007
David Kidman
It's a bit over two years since Peter's last solo studio recording (Incoherence), but he's been busy over that time, not just with the VdGG reunion tour and remasters but also in supervising the remastered reissues of his 70s Charisma solo albums. All despite having suffered a heart attack, an experience which no doubt played a part in triggering this new set of songs on which Peter reflects on mortality and on considerations of history both personal and public. With admirable, if typically cryptic succinctness, Peter admits that "the main theme here is the long dive down into not being what we were", and in confronting this situation I think he's produced a very fine set indeed, one that ranks with those Charisma albums in actual songwriting power yet doesn't possess anything like the impenetrability or degree of turn-off idiosyncrasy that many music-lovers had often found such a barrier to appreciating his earlier output. That doesn't mean to say that Peter's abandoned the experimental elements in his music - indeed, the urge to forge new and intriguing sonic landscapes is as strong as ever (eg the fragmented voice and treated-piano textures of White Dot); and Singularity is once more a totally solo effort, all instruments and voices you hear belonging to Peter himself. Lyric-wise, the Hammill hallmarks of literate and expressive heart-baring are there in abundance, yet imbued with a new maturity in their freshness of execution. What was once a distinctly inward-looking narcissism is replaced by a worldly realism, often quite self-critical and definitely not devoid of humour. Peter's metaphors are still intelligently conceived, but they're inclusive not opaque, and the music expresses a fragile tenderness amid the sometimes still painful recollection and assessment of a personal situation. Peter uses the key word "singularity" in both senses: an unusual and/or strange occurrence or situation, and a gravitational anomaly (whereby "we are circling just outside the gravitational pull of our personal black holes"). At its most intense (as on Event Horizon), Peter's writing exhibits an expressive beauty that's both accessible and immensely compelling. Now if in the past you were put off more by Peter's intensity, by way of his histrionic vocal delivery, than the actual (admittedly often impenetrable) content of his songs, then I firmly believe that Singularity may be the album to now give you the optimum chance to re-evaluate his music - for although it's still recognisably Hammill, the actual expression of the drama and thought-content within the songs is toned down naturally (not in any way dumbed down, I hasten to add) and, allied to some genuinely interesting musical content, makes for a most rewarding listening experience (and hey, Naked To The Flame even contains a snatch of tune we can whistle along with Peter!). But that doesn't for a moment mean that Peter's compromised his ideals or his talent. Singularity is a grand achievement by any standards, flying defiantly in the face of those who'd argue that anyone who's been writing and recording for 40 years is bound to have nothing new to say.
David Kidman January 2007
Following in quick succession barely a month after the previous batch, here's the second tranche of Peter Hammill remastered reissues, covering his four solo releases which originally came out between March 1977 and October 1980. The first of these, the cryptically-titled Over (well at the time I'd read that as referring to a relationship that was over – could've been personal or the band! – but I've recently learnt that the album was originally to be titled Over My Shoulder), appeared at the end of a near-two-year layoff from solo activity during which Peter had been kept busy with Van Der Graaf Generator Mk 2 and Godbluff and its sequels. On Over, Peter acceded fully to what he then considered to be his artistic responsibility – ie. to document his unyieldingly dark (and, it turns out, only partly autobiographical) ruminations on being messed up by love. The album does, however, at least seem to audibly begin where Nadir's Big Chance left off, in the sense of throwing at us the proto-punk riff-heavy vibe of Crying Wolf. After which, the gorgeously atmospheric Autumn rings the changes by employing a violinist (Graham Smith, previously of String Driven Thing and at time of recording almost on the cusp of being recruited for VDG Mk 3) to impart a powerful pseudo-classical feel to Peter's look at what he terms “an alternative future in which things have not gone off the rails at all… but which is nonetheless one lacking in unbounded joy and celebration”. The rest of Over moves bleakly through the eye of the emotional storm with the maelstrom of Time Heals, the resigned acoustic ballad Alice (Letting Go) and, perhaps most extraordinary of all, the album's coolly exciting centrepiece This Side Of The Looking-Glass which utilises a full-ish orchestra – before exiting the storm on a note of cautious optimism (Lost And Found). With hindsight, Over can be seen as laying “a blueprint for what VDG would become”. Over comes with three bonus tracks: versions of Autumn and Betrayed from a BBC session and a spare (and less well-recorded) version of Looking Glass from the same 1978 Kansas City gig that had provided bonus material for the Silent Corner and In Camera remasters.
Turning to The Future Now, released in September 1978 around eighteen months after Over, was recorded, mixed and half-written in an astounding mere six weeks during which VDGG was in its death throes and the band's live album was, er, “vital” to its chance of survival. Peter shut himself away in a rented house with the intention of working out an alternative solo way of working which made no reference to the work or style of the group, yet which stretched the boundaries of the “pop song”, also fashioning raw, concrete noise into the basis of what could be construed, at a pinch, as “normal” songs. Coming complete with some striking cover photos (like the front shot which I always thought made PH look like Kenny Everett!), The Future Now was an almost schizoid offering which paradoxically displayed an intense artistic signature. Around half of it consisted of songs viewing The Life Performing from different angles, while others embraced more “social” topics than hitherto; the remainder, the strange experimental triptych of Mediaevil, A Motor-bike In Afrika and The Cut towards the end of the record explored “found sounds” with the help of synths and beat-boxes (Peter has described these pieces as liberating, and like “sculpting aural clay”). Although there's often a distinct sense of trial-and-error about much of the album, it's amazing how it hangs together and although it's not my favourite Hammill album by any means, it nevertheless retains an aggressively confident quality right through. It marked a step forward in Peter's self-confidence as an “orchestrator”, and the use of certain traits (eg the use of synth, e-bow – on Still In The Dark – and harmonica lines – as on the cryptic Palinurus – in the arrangements) prefigures stylings which have become Peter's normal metier, particularly in the last decade. The two bonus tracks, spare versions of album tracks If I Could and The Mousetrap taken from the Kansas City tape, exude an intense self-containment.
The followup, pH7(which turned out to be Peter's final album for Charisma), appeared just over a year later, in October 1979; Peter regarded it as a twin to Future, and certainly it contained a rather similar mix of experimentation and social commentary. Its at once punning and misleading title (it was PH's eighth album not his seventh!) implied, but didn't exactly deliver, a perfect – and neutral – balance of the elements (acidity and alkalinity). It began, however, with two (for PH) less characteristic tracks: My Favourite, a fairly lightweight pop-love-song with slightly laboured imagery redeemed by a charming string arrangement, and then the declamatory new-wave stance of Careering. Thankfully there's stronger material to come: the impressive, doomy Porton Down is more typical Hammill fare, with effective utilisation of integrated drum and beatbox textures, sax and violin alongside the more concrete guitar riffing, and the memorable Mirror Images inhabits familiar VDGG territory (a less successful version had appeared on the band's double-live swansong Vital). Not For Keith is a brief but affecting tribute to VDGG's first bass player Keith Ellis; Handicap And Equality harks back to the social-commentary folk-troubadour approach, whereas The Old School Tie is an even more obvious attack on politicians and the dawn of spin, imbued with all due venom and bile. Imperial Walls, a setting of 8th century Saxon words found displayed at the Roman baths at Bath, has a scratchy grandeur all its own. Peter's ever-increasing self-confidence in home-recording and the concomitant, somewhat gleeful creativity in producing and mixing “interesting noises”, is evident throughout ph7, in fact, nowhere more perhaps than on the exuberant final pair of tracks Mr X (Gets Tense) and Faculty X (“dangerous” bare-bones voice-and-piano renditions of which, recorded for the John Peel show shortly before the album's release, provide interesting comparison here as its appended bonus tracks). Compositionally, the album's odd-man-out is an old song of Chris Judge Smith's (Time For A Change), but it's a tribute to Peter that it suffers not from the comparison with his own songs.
A Black Box, released in the late summer of 1980, was a go-it-alone independent-label effort, self-released on S-type Records almost as a gesture of frustration at the (albeit inevitable) situation of being dropped from Charisma (due partly to the ever-familiar story that although Peter's albums were critically esteemed, his music wasn't deemed commercially viable). It contained a strange mix of material for a start, ranging from the typically enigmatic (In Slow Time), the self-analytical (Losing Faith In Words and Fogwalking) and a trenchant critical onslaught on the media (Jargon King), via “pure sonic assault” (The Wipe) to “straight ahead guitar” (The Spirit, Golden Promises), with a side-long magnum opus in the shape of the ambitious, complex 19-minute Flight. This piece had a long gestation, being the first of its kind and scope that Peter had attempted outside the environs of VDGG; he'd begun writing it after The Future Now and the (then) final demise of VDGG, and it had sat on the proverbial back-burner all through the recording of ph7, and even after more than 25 years it still seems a mite impenetrable, its twists and turns signalling a curious logic and yet, despite some impressive passages, it doesn't quite hang together… but Peter (quite reasonably) views it as “a push, at last, away from the side of the pool”. Like most of Peter's music, it can at times be tough going but it invariably rewards the patient listener.
In common with the previous batch of Hammill digitally remastered reissues, the above four are state-of-the-art, and sound better than ever. All sleeve art and lyrics are faithfully reproduced, and the reissues benefit from Peter's own commentary within the booklet notes.
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David Kidman December 2006
Here, coming well over a year after the expanded reissue of Fool's Mate, we get the second batch of (four) freshly remastered and (mostly) expanded CD reissues of the series of solo albums recorded by Van Der Graaf Generator's original front-man and lyricist/guitarist: mostly brilliant, and yet under-appreciated beyond a cult following. Listening to these albums again in sequence I experience an embarrassment of riches, a torrent of ideas and feelings that's truly overwhelming. Peter's songs are singularly dramatic, turbulent, restless, angst-ridden utterances, yet they often possess much quiet beauty (both musical and lyrical) amidst all the torment.
The second and third (and suitably lengthily-titled!) of Peter's post-Mk.1-VDGG-split solo albums were first released in May 1973 and February 1974 respectively. Chameleon, though a typically introspective collection, is (compared with some of his earlier VDGG work) less concerned with wilful sci-fi obscurity and more with the deeply personal; if it were issued today, I suspect it would probably fall most readily into the indie category (notably in respect of the occasionally brittle nature of the home-studio-produced sound and its primitive, much-of-its-time approach to stereo imaging), but that's not in any way to denigrate its many abundantly impressive qualities. As Peter himself admits, he was "stumbling under the guidance of instinct as much as conscious innovation", although "many of the moves (he) made at this time were to prove pivotal in (his) later development". Like all of Peter's work, it's music of startling, nay frightening originality. In matters such as his distinctly independent spirit and obstinate integrity especially I often hear a kinship with significant mavericks like Bowie and Harper, but the truth is that for the most part Peter's songs sound like absolutely nobody else's, even though there may be elements and echoes of modern-day chanson flooding through pieces like In The End and the sinister pastoral of What's It Worth. And he was at first slow to distance himself completely from VDGG, as Easy To Slip Away (with its throwback to the personae of Refugees) and (In The) Black Room (a song originally destined for the band's next, unrecorded - intended fifth - album, with its grandiose, episodic nature and band dynamics) both show in their different ways. Chameleon may be the first real fruit of Peter's potential solo career, but it's an astonishingly assured and coherent album. Even at a temporal remove of some 30 years, it's almost too much to take in at once: like any music of a true original, it may appear more than mildly intimidating but vastly repays any effort you make to get to know it. This remastered edition comes with three bonus tracks: two are distinctly "out-there" voice-and-piano live revisits of tracks from the album, recorded in Kansas City nearly five years on from the album, which may give an exaggerated sense of perspective but are (overly) passionate, nay fierce to the point of seeming histrionic (especially the Beethovenian sense of scale Peter then brought to Easy To Slip Away). The third bonus track (Rain 3 AM) is an unreleased curiosity from around the time of the album: the sound may be a trifle flaky, but the song itself is fascinating.
The Silent Corner … was a fairly massive leap forward in terms of accomplishment in self-production technique (and recording quality), as even a cursory listen to the opener, Modern, will reveal; the song's satisfyingly complex structure is another vital element in the strong impression it makes. Peter's pulsating electric guitar work on this track in particular betrays the influence of Spirit's Randy California, who made a one-off guest appearance on another of the album's key tracks, Red Shift. More ostensibly straightforward "troubadour" material such as Wilhelmina sits easily alongside the extended, more ambitious A Louse Is Not A Home (another song retrieved from the last days of VDGG-Mk.1) and the beauteous brief epic Forsaken Gardens which bridged both periods of VDGG (and three members of the band still appear on several tracks). Of the four bonus cuts, three are versions of album tracks which come from a roughly contemporaneous Peel session (with David Jackson in tow), the last (The Lie) being another delightfully over-the-top selection from the abovementioned Kansas City concert.
In Camera was the first Hammill solo album on which everything (aside from percussion on just three tracks) was played by Peter himself. It continues the startling advances made on The Silent Corner, notably in terms of wild experimentation, while the sheer scope of its material bravely presents the listener with at times uncomfortable challenges in the form of extreme contrasts, from the relatively orthodox reflective confessional of Again to the rockist angst of Tapeworm, the intriguing guitar-quartet setting of The Comet, The Course, The Tail to the ultra-synth texturings of Faint Heart And The Sermon, and the strange but logical pairing of the harmonium-rich Gog (misprinted as Go on the back cover - oops!) with the utterly claustrophobic, nay decidedly weird musique-concrète soundscape of the cryptic Magog (In Bromine Chambers). Three bonus tracks, taken from a 1974 Peel session recorded shortly after the album's release, are sparse voice-and-piano readings of two of the album's songs plus a real rarity: a stripped-down version of the old VDGG classic The Emperor In His War-room.
Though released in February 1975, barely six months after In Camera, Nadir's Big Chance saw the Chameleon mutate dramatically into Rikki Nadir, a kind of proto-punk alter-ego! OK, Pistols it ain't - but you could almost be forgiven for hearing pre-echoes of Anarchy In The UK (or X-Ray Spex) in Birthday Special and the title track! The album comprised a set of (by Hammill standards pithy) quasi-pop-songs (though in practice few of them weigh in at under four minutes!), including the gentle Canterbury-like Been Alone So Long and a remake of the primordial VDGG tune People You Were Going To. Not unnaturally, it was received with some puzzlement and a degree of antipathy, but in retrospect, although it's not necessarily Peter's finest forty-seven minutes, I really rather like it for what it is - and it sounds great in this remaster, even though it yields no bonus tracks.
The digital remasterings of these four albums have been carried out by Peter himself, and he's opened out the original slightly thin sound with far better presence, notably in certain of the bass frequencies, and the bonus tracks are well worth having; these sensibly-coordinated reissues, which are graced with additional new notes by Peter too, are state-of-the-art. A few months after Nadir, VDGG ended its four-year set-aside, and the Godbluff lineup was to take up most of Peter's time for a year or so; a convenient point at which to break my survey of Hammill remasters - the next batch will appear shortly.
www.sofasound.com
www.vandergraafgenerator.co.uk
David Kidman October 2006
This has actually been a really difficult record to review, basically since it's nigh impossible to capture the incredibly individual essence of Brighton-based Mary's wildly original and very very special talent as a singer and songwriter. It's also one of those "less is more" jobs that makes much out of exceedingly minimal resources. And it's a seriously scary experience from beginning to end - at times it's almost too disturbing to listen to at all except in the comfort of your own mind.
But the first thing you'll hear, after the bald tenor guitar intro that is, will be Mary's totally extraordinary voice, which will bring your ears stark upright, for it takes the art of singing into an unearthly place indeed (you'll either love it or hate it with a passion, I suspect - and I love it!). It's a voice of paradoxes: if I must provide an aural reference point, well there's a deep hint of Anne Briggs in Mary's utterly assured yet almost diffident timbre. It's an airy and breathy voice, replete with that hushed, naïve intensity that exudes total immersion in, and direct expression of, experience (accentuated and emphasised by the close-miking, I don't doubt). Mary's writing - and indeed her whole sound-world - is peculiarly haunting. It's shot through with true wyrd-folk sensibility (think of artists like Pamela Wyn Shannon, Sharron Kraus and Alasdair Roberts): it might be said to embrace the closest kinship with goth-folk, but for all its dark simplicity you'll uncover abundant layers of meaning in every carefully phrased line. Imagery is spellbindingly strange, both significantly eldritch and properly poetic, sometimes ostensibly impenetrable but always keeping a firm handle on the boundaries of perception. Melodies sound primordial, ancient, modal, yet with adventurous turns of the screw.
The feel of the music, and some of the instrumentation Mary has at her command, is imaginative and often distinctly ISB (for instance, there's a gorgeous swooning cello line on Honey that just cries out to be played on bowed gimbri!). A small complement of extra musicians (including Alice Eldridge, Jo Burke, Alistair Strachan, Grant Allerdyce and co-engineer Joe Watson) supplement Mary's guitar, being used eminently selectively and to brilliant effect. Perhaps the most striking marriage of words and music comes on The Bell They Gave You, but every song here has much to offer in terms of aural and verbal stimulation and even the interpolated samples (on Free Grace and the cryptic Exeunt) don't grate or disrupt the album's curiously logical flow. Features that might in lesser hands become just a gimmick here prove essential to the impact of the songs - for example, the hidden track Encore For Florence (a weirdly touching tribute to celebrated "tuneless, tone-deaf soprano" Florence Foster Jenkins) sets a parlour piano amidst the faux-crackle of an ancient 78 in the manner of a fusty attic discovery. And maybe the strangest (and most immediately memorable) among the host of strange songs, is the acappella Ballad Of The Talking Dog, which takes the time-honoured "bunch of green holly and ivy" refrain from the domain of classic folk balladry and twists it around multiple vocal chords to the creepy accompaniment of hand and mouth percussion, with spectral whistling, discords and spoken counterpoints - it sounds like the Addams family singing a Child Ballad at their fireside on a bleak winter's evening! Like the whole album in fact, this track is at once soothing and discomforting. All in all, an extraordinary record: totally mesmerising, spiritually rewarding and - I've gotta say it - absolutely unique.
David Kidman October 2008
Wayne The Train Hancock is one of those guys who believes in doing things the old fashioned way. Well, at least when it comes to recording. Extended sessions in the studio are not for these boys. A Town Blues was recorded in 20 hours and mixed in two days. Bloodshot Records, their new label, might even be accused of providing them the luxury of extra hours. Well, at least a couple of them. The reason that he's able to do this is that the band is a hard working outfit travelling the road performing more than most. The net result is that all their albums have a spontaneous feel well, they would, wouldnt they and a bunch of songs that have matured with performance on the road. A recipe that has worked fine for all of their albums.
At the production controls, this time, is Lloyd Maines who is favoured by many of our country music friends in the US. Rightfully acknowledged on this album as The Professor for all his sterling work in this area. He closes out the album accompanying Wayne to get the regulatory forty minutes of CD time on Railroad Blues. A track that's as live as you'll get. So, if you havent gathered already, the music of Wayne Hancock is country - the honky tonk way. All styles are here. The up tempo songs swing along with a highlight in Miller, Jack And Mad Dog warning of the dangerous effect of the demon drink and driving combination. There are lonesome ballads such as Happy Birthday Julie which has the singer passing on congratulations to the girlfriend who left him and got killed in a car crash. Mr Hancocks pen accounts for ten of the tracks with the others including Cow Cow Boogie which was made famous by Ella Mae Morse who was popular in the 1940s and 50s. This gives you a good clue as to where this band are positioned. Yes, its traditional honky tonk in all its flavours with great songs done just like a live show. Sound good? You bet.
Steve Henderson
The odds have to be that Hand - whom Willie Nelson describes as the 'real deal' - will remain as unfazed and unaffected as his music by the acclaim that will surely follow The Truth Will Set You Free.
While the revolutions of Americana, 'big hat' country and 'nu country' have swirled around him, James Hand has steadfastly remained true to the heart and soul of old country, the kind that served Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell and Ernest Tubb so well.
While a 'career' musician, one who has done nothing else in his life, may have to search long and hard for the truth of his songs, Hand has to look no further than his own life. 40 years of playing for '$15 a person and free beer' and his 'other' career as a horse trainer have imbued his music with an unbreakable strength. He has also drawn deeply on a lifetime's experiences at the 'unknown' end of the musical spectrum, James Hand isn't showbusiness, to echo Nelson's wise words, he's the 'real deal'.
This collection of a dozen originals gives a small overview of Hand's work, his country music encompasses the whole range, beginning with the wonderfully light and sunny swing of Banks Of The Brazos and ending with When You Stopped Loving Me, So Did I, not only a classic country title but a song that could be as old as country music itself. Without Hands's tender touch it could easily have been swamped by corn, however three chords and the truth never hit home quite so sharply.
There's almost a novelty factor in listening to an artist play pure, undiluted country music, no whistles no bells, just plain old, from the heart country. James Hand may have taken 40 years to get intot he studio but I'll bet it doesn't take another 40 for him to be back.
Michael Mee
James Hand plays a single date in the UK - July 26th at The Luminaire, 7:30pm, 311 High Road, Kilburn, London NW6 7JR 020 7372 7123. This is en route to Country Rendez-Vous Festival, Craponne sur Arzon, France July 29th
Over the years they've been musical partners Brett and Rennie Sparks have built a reputation as one of the world's finest purveyors of melancholy Americana, their music conjuring images of dust hung desert nights and Appalachian mountains silhouetted against the evening sky as they sit round the camp fire singing songs of loss, death and damnation.
So, a surprise then to find the new album a relatively more upbeat affair, noting a world waltzing towards self-destruction but celebrating the small and infinite moments of beauty and wonder that nature provides to soothe the soul's fears.
Using such instruments as mellotron and wine glasses and drawing on the sepia tinted worlds of hillbilly, tin pan alley ballads, cowboy country, western slow waltzers and, on Beautiful William, even medieval tunes, Brett crafts the careworn honky tonk melodies upon which songs like Somewhere Else To Be, Bowling Alley Blues (very George Jones) and Your Great Journey are built.
Meanwhile, Rennie takes lyrical inspiration from the life of Nicola Tesla, the electrical engineer and scientist who invented alternating current transmitters but whose ambivalence to the world let him to become a recluse in his hotel room, unable to bear the touch of human skin. However, as she notes in the waltzing Tesla's Hotel Room from where comes the album's title, one day he opened the window and befriended pigeons, finding his way back out of the darkness. It's that contact with the universal her songs explore.
Unfolding in airport lounges (the throaty Neil Young-like All The Time In Airports), bowling alleys (Bowling Alley Bar) and graveyards (White Lights), she tells stories of hunters shooting prey that transforms into their true love (Hunter Green), of shoes hung over telephone wires (These Golden Jewels) and post apocalypse life (After We Shot The Grizzly), striking emotional chords from such images as a black glove on the cliffs, broken cheap sunglasses, and 'a small bag of onion rings'. Existential, metaphysical, whatever, the Sparks dig beneath the dry clay and turn dulled stones into diamonds. A thing of wonder indeed.
Mike Davies, May 2006
The Handsome Family - Singing Bones (Loose)
Now suitably based in Albuquerque, Mexico, baritone Brett Sparks and his ethereal voiced lyricist wife Rennie follow up 2001's breakthrough death ballads collection Twilight with yet another collection of poisoned dark country melancholia that reinforces their reputation as the Johnny Cash and June Carter of contemporary Americana..
If you've not encountered them before, then try and imagine a rocky mesa at dusk, cacti and stark jutting Appalachian mountains silhouetted against the evening sky, the sound of rattlesnakes occasionally breaking the silence, dust gathering in your throat, an empty whisky bottle in your hand and the death angel sitting round a camp fire with an acoustic guitar singing of the souls that have passed this way en route to damnation.
This time round they've fleshed out the sound somewhat, pushing the boat out by adding musical saw and pedal steel to the basic mix of guitars, keyboards and drums mandolin and such regular embelishments as auto harp, bango and violin. But the landscape remains mich the same with its dark valleys, black hills, and creeping shadows a perfect backdrop to songs that explore the "veil between this world and the next" on numbers such as the whippoorwilling waltz 24-Hour Store where the sleepless and the lost push their trollies as the crying ghosts of dead shoppers flit in and out the aisles, the cowboy dying in the desert on the clacking chugger The Song of a Hundred Toads or the farmer lowering himself down The Bottomless Hole behind the barn where dead cows, garbage and tractors seem to fall forever.
It's a magnificently moody but also blackly humoured mariachi collection, evoking the spirit of Marty Robbins on the hauntedly romantic Gail With The Golden Hair, channeling Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra across the still waters of The Forgotten Lake and through the thorny bushes Far From Any Road, walking with Johnny Cash on the Southern Baptist rework Dry Bones, gathering round the family Bible for the a capella If The World Should End In Fire and its closing counterpart If The World Should End In Ice. Texas Gothic at its finest, there's no better wallow in gallows humour and death balladry to be had this side of Nick Cave.
Mike Davies
This duo's fourth album In The Air was one of the listening highlights of 2000 for me, and this new one coincides handsomely with a UK tour. Husband and wife team Brett and Rennie Sparks make very strange music that's at once comforting and unsettling, smooth and caustic; it's both seriously weird and weirdly serious. Kinda like an unpardonably sweet, easy-on-the-ear gothic country, but lots more addictive than that tag might imply - try to imagine Johnny Cash singing Beefheart lyrics! Brett's is the golden voice, and he also plays almost everything in sight, while Rennie seems to content to pen those peculiarly poetic lyrics while contributing occasional vocals and autoharp. The songs contain some exquisite imagery, which often appears inconsequential but is actually finely crafted, while musical settings are by turns mournful (There Is A Sound), sinisterly jaunty (All The TVs In Town) and creepy (Gravity), often running counter to what you'd expect from a cursory reading of the texts. With cunning simplicity, Cold Cold Cold packs all the atmospheric power of an old John Leyton/Joe Meek classic, while I defy anyone not to be moved by No-One Fell Asleep Alone or the delicious Gene Autry cowboy shuffle of I Know You Are There ("When the rope of death strangles …. when white owls circle screaming and gravel fills my mouth"), or the wonderfully deadpan lament So Long. With typical oddball directness, the insert helpfully explains that "this CD was recorded at home on our Macintosh G3….. it took a long time because the TV was next to the computer"; and 'tis a full, rich - and yes, beautiful - sound they coax indeed. You must experience the uniqueness of the Sparks Family's vision at least once in your life!
David Kidman
Formerly leader of 80s Newcastle upon Tyne underachievers Hurrah!, were Handyside to never pen another song he would still warrant singer-songwriter immortality for the title track of his solo debut. Little short of a modern day hymn with a soaring arms-linked swaying chorus that builds to a jubilant, uplifting finale as he sings 'let now every heart rejoice', it's hard not to find the words Rufus, Wainright, Buckley and Jeff rising unbidden to the lips.
The same is true throughout the album where you might also see parallels with Martin Stephenson (with whom he's collaborated on a Grant McLennan tribute), but which unfolds to reveal him as very much his own man. Working with producer Rob Tickell (who also plays bass and Hawaiian Weissenborn guitar) and Hurrah! drummer David Porthouse, he's crafted an album steeped in dusty Americana, English folk and church music. Indeed, that hymnal quality is also forcefully to be heard on the no less outstanding Midwinter's Feast with its hallelujah chorus, lines about church bells and wheezing harmonium and the closing piano backed, emotion quivering Peace In Our Time as he sings "God bless our bombs and the guns we are firing, caught in the crossfire of lies we told."
Dealing in themes of love, loss uncertainty and disillusion, the album's musical textures are simple but rich. The opening piano ballad Beautiful Thing hints at Brel and Buckley equally (you could also imagine hearing it on an early Scott Walker album), Darkest Night is brooding, muscular bluesy soul flecked folk, River Of Song harks to Irish trad folk swayalong while acoustic Americana warms the heart of The Slow Road and the yearningly gorgeous Whisper In Your Mind with its pedal steel and Paul Heaton colours.
There's not a weak moment here but it would be remiss not to also make special mention of Let The Lights Go Down, a spare, romantically bruised acoustic song of pleading and resignation that features shared vocals with Maria Yuriko and curls around the ears like aural aromatherapy. Hopefully it won't mirror Hurrah!'s fate of critical acclaim but little commercial success, because Handyside truly deserves to be discovered on a global scale. Let now every heart rejoice, indeed.
www.paulhandyside.com
www.myspace.com/paulhandyside
Mike Davies June 2008
What if music had smells? If CDs were impregnated with an aroma that embodied the essence of the sounds. Motorhead would be leather, axle grease and sweat, Lucinda Williams would be the smell of tarmac intermingling with fresh cornfields, Radiohead would be antiseptic and anything from the Pop Idols stable would, of course, be a ripe processed cheese. If that were the case then playing the Dogs would fill the room with the scent of leafy English country lanes, the grass glistening with dew, raindrops from a summer shower dripping from leaves on the trees, a clean freshness in the air.
Comprising Andy Allen, formerly a jobbing member of the Pistols and Professionals, his ex-lover Joanna 'Piano' Pace, and his (but not her) daughter Lily Ramona, it's been four years since the South London trio emerged with their Joe Boyd overseen debut, Bareback, on his Hannibal label. Reviews glowed for their fusion of English folk rock, celtic country and the sort of midwest American gothic embodied by Matthews Southern Comfort, underpinning lyrics of a generally downbeat mood.
However a cancelled Rankins tour on which they'd been booked as support followed by label problems, took the edge off what should have been fast lane progress up the folk roots ladder. Now they're back via a different licensing deal, still with Boyd keeping a watchful eye, and while there's times when the mix has a few too many rough edges, if the wheels turn smoothly there's no reason why this shouldn't elevate them to the hallowed ranks of artists such as the Indigo Girls, Dear Janes, the McGarrigles, Poozies, Michelle Shocked, and the early incarnation of Suzanne Vega.
Evoking worthy comparisons to the likes of McTell, Thompson and Martin Taylor, Allen's nimble fretwork dances all over the album, cascading arpeggios, tumbling lullabies, meditative strums, bluegrass banjo, steel strings twanging and resonating under his fingertips. Here and there the acoustic guitars are coloured with mournful woodwind, hand percussion, cello, dulcimer, and double bass but mostly they're left to weave their own spells, the women's voices - sometimes in harmony, more often with Piano's dust and creekwater wearied whispering tones taking lead - providing the real complementary textures. Her songs haven't exactly found the sunnier paths of life, but as the album title, Whole Way (where they express the optimistic hope to 'sell a lot of records') and even death song Little Door ("I wouldn't say the world has opened up, just a little door but it's enough" ) hint there's at least rays of light coming through and any darker concerns are well shaded behind the generally sprightly tunes.
Spanning English trad folk flavours and appalachian mountain music (Let Alone Me), it's hard to pin down prize tracks from the 12 contained here, but pushed to name favourites then the repeat play button hits on the haunting Half Smile with the two women weaving witchy, dank forest harmonies as a flute threads its way between the spaces, the resigned Women Who Love Too Much (as Fred Neil meets Sandy Denny), Singers (shades of Leonard Cohen and early Judy Collins) and Hollywood, a dreamy tale of empty success, self-deceptions and those left behind in the road to fame on which Allen takes lead vocals, his timbre and phrasing soundin