Month: September 2019
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Black Futures: Never Not Nothing
This is their debut and it’s a mighty album; possibly not to everyone’s taste but mighty nonetheless. They’re a duo but it’s a massive sound, with pounding drums, massive riffs and fat bass. The sound is somewhere between Biffy Clyro, Nine Inch Nails (the NNN on the cover looks suspiciously like NIN) and a screamo…
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Craig Finn: I Need A New War
The song title is not a proclamation of bellicose intent but a lyric from a track about a man who is lost and simply needs a reason for getting his life back on track. That twist is typical of the songs and the approach of this album, which is both muscular and tender. We listen…
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Vyacheslav Artyomov: Sola Fide Symphony In Spe / Latin Hymns Star Wind
We find ourselves repeating the same things about Artyomov and with Divine Art releasing his work at regular intervals we thought we’d promote a bunch together. Artyomov is one of Russia’s greatest living composers. He writes music that’s galactically huge, by which we mean it gives the impression of space and endless time; the music…
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Wolf Harden: Busoni: Piano Music, Vol. 11
We previously compared a CD from Mr Harden with Shane Patrick Lysaght MacGowan’s* lyric about Jimmy’s harmonica, which “soothed the souls of psychos and the men who had the horn”, and this new collection of piano pieces sees that hold true. It’s very late-night and calming. The BBC reports that Sir Edward Elgar considered Ferruccio…
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Sun-A Park: Muzio Clementi, Keyboard Sonatas
This is piano music for listening to, and it’s highly pleasurable. The sleeve notes say that while Mozart was “typically grudging” about Clementi, Beethoven had a high regard for his compositions, and Clementi was pivotal to the piano’s development as a virtuoso instrument. Mozart possibly didn’t like him because Clementi was a show-off and brilliant,…
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Delta High: Superfluidity
This is an album that closes with a song called Hey Ho Rock ‘n’ Roll: Delta High have perhaps realised that triumph and disaster are both impostors, to misquote Rudyard Kipling, and just want to have fun. Delta High take in a variety of sounds and styles. The band’s Neil Jackson — who lived two…
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Morganway: Morganway
At the start of their career are Morganway, a six-piece from East Anglia; success surely beckons. Founded by twin brothers Callum (vocals, guitar, bass) and Kieran Morgan (lead guitar, backing vocals) they sound like they’re from California, about 1976 … down on the surf, just after those Fleetwood Mac fellows from England switched from blues…
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Sunjay: Devil Came Calling
Sunjay has been seen at award ceremonies: he was a young folk award finalist in 2012 at Radio Two and the same year won the young performers award at the Wath Festival, as well as being a winner at the New Roots competition in St Albans. In 2014 he was nominated three times at the…
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David Gibb: Rolling Down The Road
Gibb is a familiar figure at Rode Hall’s Just So and played Bollington Festival this year. In a previous guise he was a finalist of the BBC Radio Two young folk awards in 2011. In 2013 he featured alongside musical collaborator Elly Lucas in an advertising campaign for Gola trainers. Success must have seemed close.…
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Olympia: Flamingo
There was a moment — track four, Nervous Riders — when we thought we were going to love this album, but sadly it’s a little too patchy. This is the second album by Australian singer-songwriter Olympia (real name Olivia Bartley, and from Wollongongand) and it’s psychedelic pop with leaning towards to indie. On the plus…
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