Author: jerobear
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Karine Polwart: Laws of Motion
Folk singer Polwart doesn’t need to sing or play instruments to sound good — as she proves on I Burn But I Am Not Consumed, she can talk mellifluously; it’s almost a disappointment when she starts to sing. I Burn But I Am Not Consumed is a good start to the album. In the opening…
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Carson Cooman: Owl Night
We’d like to be the first to compare organ music with Phil Collins. This latest in the never-ending series of CDs by Cooman and/or Erik Simmons (who plays) is the one we like best thus far. Organ music can be a little formal or even ponderous, and there’s that whole echoey in a church thing…
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The Blinders: Columbia
It’s been a good year for lovers of scuzzy yet intelligent punk, first Idles and now this (shame they added the “The”, they could start a trend of single-name bands). Idles have an earthier sound, Blinders’ opener channels The Shadows covering a Cossack dance, with a retro swampy guitar sound. The shouted vocals are not…
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Powersolo: Bo-Peep
This is one of those odd albums that some people will love, most people will hate (“Has someone been stabbed in there?” a person passing the Review Corner asked as it played). Powersolo is Kim Jeppesen and the Press notes, which try and make him seem like an enigmatic man with no name, say the…
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Tom Odell: Jubilee Road
NME famously gave a previous Odell long-player a zero-star review, calling his music “offensively dull”. The review was itself gratuitously offensive — Mr Odell Snr wrote in and complained — but after listening to this a number of times, we think NME did have a point: it’s not offensive, but it is dull. He’s a…
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Cher: Dancing Queen
If you’re stuck for Xmas presents or even music for your Xmas party, Cher has obliged. Abba wrote some of the best pop tunes in history, Cher is, well, Cher. She knows what’s going to work and she doesn’t muck about much with the songs, so Abba fans — which is basically everyone, in the…
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Josh Taerk: Beautiful Tragedy
Taerk comes across as a performer who’s massive in his home country (Canada in his case) and is trying to crack the UK, but he’s not; this new album is his third and he’s yet to break through. It’ll be unbelievable if he doesn’t: he writes instantly appealing, melodic pop/rock tunes that will appeal to…
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Jess Glynne: Always In Between
And the mystery of Jess Glynne continues. Mystery because the sleeve art and lyrics suggests a deeply insecure woman who battles with failure, yet she’s had seven No1 singles, more than any other British female artist. I Cry When I Laugh, her last album, released in 2015, is still the 51st best-selling album in the…
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Pet Shop Boys: Behaviour / Very / Bilingual
The PS Boys have been re-releasing their albums all year so they’re not out for Christmas but they’d make good pressies — the sleeve notes alone are worth the price, entertaining, indiscreet and informative as they are. This final tranche is albums that came after their heyday but they’re all still good. We might have…
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Georg Telemann: Christmas Oratorios
This is proper Christmas music, all trumpets, the sound of angels — or at least a heavenly chorus and — and proper singers. Telemann was a German Baroque composer and multi-instrumentalist. Despite being self-taught, he ended up in Hamburg as musical director of the five main churches. He was a friend to JS Bach, who…
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