Author: jerobear
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Philip Grange: Homage
If Philip Glass’s take on Vivaldi is aimed at mass appeal, this work from Philip Grange is at some other end of a spectrum. It’s far from difficult but it’s also not a lightweight piece you can instantly relax into. Grange is an academy and professor of music at Manchester University and there is a…
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The Twang: If Confronted, Just Go Mad
The Twang date back to the indie “The band” explosion, along with fellow Thes View, Pigeon Detectives, Wombats, Fratellis, Kooks et al, an era of poor bands and sloppy tracks; Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong didn’t even get to release their finished album, despite us getting a review copy, probably because of a…
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Basil Athanasiadis: Book Of Dreams
This is a delightful album of Japanese-inspired music from the Shonorities, an ensemble created by Greek composer Basil Athanasiadis. It’s an album of music that’s barely music — often more of a background ambient sound. It reminds us of Steve Hillage’s Rainbow Dome Musick, an ambient album released in 1979. Brian Eno, who pioneered ambient…
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Gill Landry: Skeleton at the Banquet
Landry — formerly of Old Crow Medicine Show — wrote these songs while spending the summer in small-town Western France. He doesn’t say, but we bet 80s-vintage Leonard Cohen was being played as he wrote; Cohen of that era will spring to mind when you play it. Musically, its dominated by Landry’s soft baritone; the…
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Natacha Atlas: Strange Days
Atlas is from Egypt and this album sees her meld her roots with jazz. It’s a beautifully recorded selection of tracks that drifts into easy listening — the gentlest it goes is a bit late night, with an interesting fusion of sounds and instrumentation. Atlas began her career as part of the world fusion group…
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West My Friend: In Constellation
Canadian folk trio West My Friend have roped in a symphony orchestra and choir to go with their regular guitar, mandolin and accordion for this new album. If your record collection is stuffed with 50s style crooners and big bands accompanied by an accordion, this is for you. For the rest of us, it’s an…
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Charlie Parr: Charlie Parr
At first play, Charlie Parr’s self-titled new album sounds like a worthy but basically routine album: man sings while skilfully finger-picking a 12-string. (He plays a Mule resonator, National resonator guitar, a fretless open-back banjo, and a 12-string guitar, often in the Piedmont blues style). The album is a mix of old and new songs,…
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Eleanor Hodgkinson: Nino Rota, Complete Solo Piano Works, Vol. 1
You all know the music of Nino Rota — he wrote scores for films such as The Godfather; the famous main theme from that, Speak Softly, Love is his. He also wrote the music for 150 other films. His day job was director of the Conservatorio di Musica Niccolò Piccinni in Bari and he also…
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Antje Weithaas: Schumann Violin Concerto
This was one of Schumann’s last major compositions, and should perhaps be called “the doomed”. It remained more or less unknown for more than 80 years after it was written, because violinist Joseph Joachim, for whom it was composed, suspected it revealed the composer’s madness (bipolar, probably). Then, as the sleeve notes explain, it was…
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Marius Neset: Viaduct
Nominally jazz but Norwegian saxophonist Neset proves he is a composer, period, as he and the London Sinfonietta baffle anyone who tries to pigeon-hole music. The piece opens with bustling orchestral strings and percussion before a jazz sound emerges with urgently plucked double bass (?) and some easy listening sax before it all goes a…
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