Author: jerobear
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Parachute For Gordo: Best Understood by Children and Animals
This is a great album, a clever ramshackle affair of what sounds like jams but is probably carefully arranged. The feel, if not sound, is somewhere between bands such as Ozric Tentacles and bands on the more stoner side (musically, anyway) such as Holy F–K or even Goat. You could also compare them to Explosions…
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Basia Bulat: Are You In Love?
This is a decent pop album that, without being great, manages to wriggle its way into your affections. The chief appeal is her voice, which manages to be throaty and powerful without being too dominant, and while sounding calming. She’s got deep-ish vocals and the sound is slightly wistful, while also being bold. Wistful is…
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Andrew Hawkey: Long Story Short
We liked Hawkey before we heard a note: he was born in 1942 (yes, really) in Wadebridge, Cornwall, a favourite Review Corner haunt (and home to Andrew Ridgeley) and also lived in Cheshire. He left school at 15 to work on poultry farms, but became an estate agent. He was in London for the swinging…
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Smoke Fairies: Darkness Brings The Wonders Home
We’ve never really warmed to Smoke Fairies (Katherine Blamire and Jessica Davies), who’ve been going for years, releasing music every now and then, but this is solid, comforting indie, with injections of goth and blues. The vocals may be your decider, as they’re bold, powerful and to the fore. The album opens with On The…
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Howard Skempton: The Man, Hurdy-gurdy and Me
We sometimes rave about albums but this is 100% wonderful. If we ever send a space rocket into space (in case you wondered where space rockets go), you could send this recording to sum up Britishness: witty, joyful, a bit mad, wildly eccentric and lots of fun. Whatever you want it’s got it, from early…
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Stumbleine: Sink Into The Ether
Producer Stumbleine’s seventh album, offers, say the Press notes, “a deep submergence within a celestial upper region somewhere beyond the clouds”, which in a nutshell is Moby in his more thoughtful moments. It’s a decent album, albeit low key: one for late nights and reflection. If you weren’t locked in your house, it would be…
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Littlemen: It’s a Beautiful Thing
If ever an album hid its delights in its opening bars, it’s this. The start of opener The Girl With The Red Blouse sounds something like a country take on Wet Wet Wet’s Something In The Air, a gentle, slow pop tune with soft vocals, no indication of what’s coming. Then it builds in power…
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Harp and a Monkey: The Victorians
This is a joy of an album, something a little different and with plenty of interest for the listener. The title seems to be from the fact that they’re from Manchester and sing of tales from the city’s industrial history; they’re a band that tells stories set to music. The cover sleeve is a peppered…
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Cilia Petridou: Visions of the Greek Soul
This double CD of vocal music has an other-worldly feel, the second half of the programme being more traditional in sound. Aside from some piano, it’s all vocals (mainly soprano, plus tenor and bass). It’s a double album, in two parts: the first half is 15 songs inspired by the Muses and looking at our…
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John McCabe: Scarlatti / Clementi Sonatas
An album it’s hard to say much about: John McCabe plays some great piano pieces very well. The music was recorded in 1981. McCabe was approached by Ted Perry, of Hyperion, who suggested some Scarlatti sonatas. McCabe wanted to record sonatas by Clementi, in his view an unjustifiably neglected composer, whereas many fine pianists were…
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