In the run-up to Christmas we’ll highlight some albums that will add atmos to the festivities, for those who want something seasonal while avoiding the clichéd regulars. This collection of baroque bass cantatas is the first: the title means The Lord Is King, so it’s church music rather than specifically, Christmas but it’s got that […]
Ciaran Lavery: Not Nearly Dark
The Press notes compare Lavery to Fionn Regan, which is good: we thought that, too. Regan is an Irish singer/songwriter with a distinctive voice who wrote good tunes — try Be Good Or Be Gone or Underwood Typewriter. We played this and Regan’s debut back to back and Regan has the edge vocally, possessing a […]
Terence Charlston: Mersenne’s Clavichord
This pleasant album is more important for scholars of music and keyboard buffs than your casual listener, though it’s a nice enough collection. Early-music specialist Terence Charlston is playing Mersenne’s Clavichord, a clavichord built according to specifications left by Marin Mersenne – no examples of an original French clavichord survive. Wikipedia reports that Mersenne, a […]
Carwash: Disco Classics box set
This is a “does what it says on the tin” CD: it’s a compilation of the most iconic disco classics of all time (all trendy now, and it’s in partnership with the London and Ibiza club brand Carwash). Everyone is on here, and pretty much every classic hit you’d want, from an age when dance […]
Various: Body Of Songs
There must be reason for this enjoyable CD but we can’t work it out, other than “why not?”. It’s the first album we’ve reviewed that is supported by the Wellcome Trust, University College London Hospitals, the Gordon Museum and the NHS. The Body of Songs team has enlisted various performers to write songs about functions […]
Beans On Toast: Running Up The Hill
Last week we reviewed EJ Moeran’s Folksong Arrangements (Naxos 8571359), a collection of old songs collected by Ernie Moeran. We made the point that they were songs from an age before mass entertainment, when farmers or sailors would gather and be entertained by songs that told stories to which they could relate. The words were […]
Reverend And The Makers: Mirrors
The wonder of Reverend And The Makers is not that this is any good but that they’re here at all. Becoming known because of a couple of tunes and being mates with the Arctic Monkeys, they’ve never really fulfilled any potential and seem to keep going because main man Jon McClure is a character who […]
Metric: Pagans In Vegas
We should really like this Canadian band (whom we’ve not heard of before): Emily Haines and Jimmy Shaw perform with Review Corner favourite Broken Social Scene, and Haines has guested on albums by artists such as Stars, both of which are quality indie. This album lacks the appeal that Broken Social Scene have, and despite […]
BBC Radio 1: Live Lounge 2015
Yet again it’s that annual exercise in making us feel old as, despite listening every single day to new music, the teenage associates of the Review Corner make it clear that this what da kids (or at least a lot of them) listen to. Our problem is that we like bands and musicians who make […]
EJ Moeran: Folksong Arrangements
We’ve been enjoying this collection of folk tunes, which doesn’t sound as you might think, neither stuffy nor reminiscent of a bearded man in sandals with one finger in his ear. A modern equivalent — CDs are like buses — is the Beans on Toast album (review next week); that band’s Jay McAllister being an […]
