The Messenger Birds follow in the footsteps and The Black Keys, The White Stripes and Royal Blood, two blokes making a lot of noise (“That’s not a rock band, that’s just two guys!” they cite “some guy named Kevin” as saying on their Bandcamp page). Like Jack White, they’re from Detroit, Michigan. The album opens […]
Roderick Chadwick: La Mer Bleue
This technical and slightly self-involved album revolves around Catalogue d’Oiseaux (“Catalogue of birds”), a work for piano solo by Olivier Messiaen. The full work is 13 pieces, devoted to birds and dedicated to his second wife Yvonne Lorio. The CD takes in the first three, the Alpine chough (chocard des Alpes), The Eurasian golden oriole […]
Eagles: Live From The Forum
We’ve never really been massive fans of Eagles but you’d have to be a miserable wretch not to like this new double album recorded live at the impressive Inglewood venue, practically a homecoming gig for the band. Someone who saw Eagles years ago complained to us: “It sounded just like the records”, which is perhaps […]
Kulick: Yelling in a Quiet Neighborhood
We almost decided not to like Kulick on principle; he’s just too cool for school, cheekbones and all that. We watched a couple of videos and he looks like a yoof from Sarf Laandan, but he appears to be from America. This is surprising: the sound is English commercial indie/pop. He sounds like loads of […]
Idles: Ultra Mono
Idles and Fontaines DC trod similar ground with their early music, enjoyable fist-in-the-air ramshackle punky rock making political statements. The DCs moved on to slicker fare with their most recent release but Idles have not; it’s still gnarly. When it works, it’s great; other times less so. Expressing working class anger at the state of […]
Arcade Messiah: The Host
We first came across Arcade Messiah years ago, when we had a double (?) CD to review; we thought it was the career-end of a US cult prog band but they must have been very early releases from Arcade Messiah, and now we feel bad. Particularly as he gave this album away.Arcade Messiah is one-man […]
Ayalew Mesfin: Che Belew!
The Press notes say that Ayalew Mesfin is among the greats of 1970s Ethiopian music legends, the music he created with his Black Lion Band among the funkiest to arise from Addis Ababa. His records were mostly 7in singles and reel-to-reel tapes collected for this and it’s a charming and enjoyable album. The recordings are […]
Geoffrey Allen: Music For Woodwinds
It’s entirely possible we’ve played this more than even the composer; it’s pleasant background music, and we kept just pressing play, and although nothing really sticks in the head, it’s always interesting. llen was born in 1927 and studied chemistry and geography at Oxford, going on to work in Australian libraries, latterly at the University […]
Georgie: At Home
We like Georgie in the Review Corner. With that name and her appearance, she could be one of those X Factor clones (that type of voice, that mild RnB) but she’s not. She can really sing, needs no Auto-tunes and her rich, soulful voice is at home singing pop, jazz or blues. If you like […]
